


Something Might Be Found

by haledamage



Category: Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: (enemies doesn't last very long though), Canon-Typical Violence, Cheesy romance, Childhood Friends, Consensual Sex, F/M, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Romantic Fluff, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-01-12 13:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 66,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18447203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haledamage/pseuds/haledamage
Summary: Cathain Cousland had been in love with Nathaniel Howe for as long as she can remember. It doesn't take long after they reunite in Amaranthine to realize she still is.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> "The past is gone but something might be found to take its place…" - _Hey Jealousy_ , Gin Blossoms

“So you’re her,” an angry, bitter voice said from the shadows at the far end of the cell. “The Warden-Commander. Hero of Ferelden. Just another thief and murderer. Here to murder me, too, _Hero_?”

Cathain paused at the bottom of the stairs. Something about the voice seemed familiar, an itch in the back of her mind that she couldn’t scratch. She let the silence stretch, trying to think, hoping he’d speak again to give her a clue, but he stayed stubbornly silent.

She finally stepped forward and said in her most imperious tone, “The only thief I see here is you. Why did you break into my home? What are you looking for?”

“It’s _my_ home,” he snarled. She didn’t see him move, but suddenly he was in her face. He grabbed a handful of her cloak and dragged her closer until they both pressed against the bars, only inches apart.

Even contorted with rage as it was, Cathain would know Nathaniel Howe’s face anywhere. He had his father’s large, hooked nose, but his mother’s strong jaw, which balanced out his face. It made him look… not handsome, necessarily, but _striking_ and dignified. His dark hair was ink and shadow in the prison, but his piercing blue eyes glowed with barely contained malice.

“Nate?” The world escaped unbidden, small and sad.

He froze, and for a moment he looked more like the boy she'd known. He released the grip on her cloak, instead pushing her hood back to reveal her face, 8 years older but still not much changed from when he’d left.

He stared. “Caitie?” Several emotions flashed across his face in rapid succession, relief, longing, pain, sadness, then back to the comfort of anger. “Did you kill my father, Caitie?”

She wished she could deny it, wished too that she regretted it, if only for Nathaniel’s sake. “He gave me no other choice,” was the best answer she could give him. At least it wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth. “Nate, _please_ , if you would just let me explain–”

“There’s nothing you could say that would make this right,” he said, voice low and dangerous.

“Nate…” Cathain repeated, though she didn’t know what else she could say. She reached for him, unsure if she intended to comfort him or shake some sense into him.

He slapped her hand away. “It’s _Nathaniel_ ,” he growled. “It should be _Lord Howe_ , but you _stole_ that from me.”

Cathain stared into the seething blue eyes of the man before her and felt cold all over. There was nothing there of the boy she knew, who used to braid flowers into her hair, who stole her first kiss during the Harvest Festival when she was 13 - and many others after. All that was left was rage and pain.

She heard a shift of armor and swords behind her, followed by approaching footsteps. Varel, most likely. He stopped right behind her, waiting for orders.

Something new crept into Nathaniel’s face. Desperation and a challenge. He thought she intended to kill him and he was preparing to fight.

She kept her eyes on him, but spoke to Varel. “How many of your men did you say it took to subdue him?”

“Four,” said the seneschal softly. He said everything softly. “And I’m still not sure he didn’t surrender.”

“I invoke the Right of Conscription,” Cathain said firmly. It was selfish of her, but she didn’t want to see him leave any more than she wanted to see him hanged.

Varel didn’t seem surprised in the least, but Nathaniel took two steps back from the bars. His shock was obvious even half hidden in shadow. Two soldiers stepped forward and unlocked the door, poised to intercept if Nathaniel tried to run or attack.

He did neither. Instead, he stepped slowly forward until he stood in front of Cathain again. Without the bars between them, he seemed to tower over her. Had he always been this tall?

Shock had wiped away the anger on his face and he looked almost like himself again. He stared at her some more. She kept her face blank. “Caitie–” he started, but she cut him off.

“It’s Arlessa Cousland,” she said coldly. “Or Warden-Commander, if you’d prefer. If you will not listen to me, you should expect the same courtesy.”

“Of course,” he growled, “ _Warden-Commander_.”

“Come, then, _Lord Howe_ ,” and Cathain hoped she’d put as much venom in his title as he’d put in hers. “Let’s see if you can make it as a Grey Warden.”


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All their things had been removed, but the feeling behind them remained, drifting through the halls like ghosts.

Cathain hated Amaranthine, and hated Vigil’s Keep most of all. Every inch of it felt steeped in history, in the combined legacy of the Howes and Couslands. Every room held a memory, of summers and holidays and dinners and parties. Of mornings with Thomas and afternoons with Delilah and nights with Nathaniel. Cait’s bedroom still smelled like Delilah’s favorite perfume.

All their things had been removed, but the feeling behind them remained, drifting through the halls like ghosts.

And through it all Nathaniel loomed, a living, scowling specter from a different life. He didn’t speak, not to the others and especially not to her, but she could always feel him there. He was in her periphery as she spoke to Veral about deploying soldiers to surrounding lands, hiding among the stacks as she perused the library, waiting in the hallway as she headed to her room for the night. 

Once, frustrated and more than a little tipsy, Cait leaned against her door and demanded, “Are you waiting for an invitation, Nate? You never needed one before.”

He didn’t stop looming after that, but he did it a little farther away, giving her more space. She tried not to be disappointed.

After three weeks, Cait had had enough. She wandered into the cellar under the pretense of exploration, listening for quiet footsteps on the stairs behind her as Nathaniel followed her down.

It had been outfitted as an area for sparring and close-combat training. Straw mats covered the floor to soften falls and polished wooden weapons of all shapes and sizes lined the back wall for practicing armed fighting. Best of all, it was empty.

“What is this?” He asked quietly from the doorway. It was the first time he’d said anything to her since the Joining.

Cathain kept her back to him, pretending to test the balance of a couple of daggers. Over her shoulder, she said, “I need to blow off a little steam. All this time in the Vigil is making me feel restless. I thought I could take it out on one of the dummies down here.”

“There aren’t any dummies down here.”

“There’s you,” she said with a sly grin. He huffed a laugh, the sound surprised out of him, and she grinned wider. She grabbed a longsword and tossed it toward him. He caught it almost absentmindedly.

“This was your plan all along,” Nathaniel growled, but he stepped onto the mat across from her as he did. She tried not to notice how broad his shoulders were from years wielding a bow.

“I had _other_ plans, but I figured you’d be averse.” Cait spun the daggers in her hands and stood on her toes, ready to move quickly when she needed to. He tried not to notice the toned muscles of her arms from years of swordplay.

Nathaniel lunged at her without warning. He was faster than she expected, but she was faster still and managed to sidestep the first swing of the blade. In the opening he left, she brought a dagger up toward his ribs, but he knocked it away with a quick strike to her elbow. She danced backwards a couple steps and waited.

He wasn’t as angry as Cathain had anticipated. She’d expected that hatred she’d seen from him that night in the prison; the whole plan had been to help him work that off so they could make some progress towards civility, but it seemed to have mostly simmered away over the weeks since. Nathaniel was aggressive, sure, but not in a way that said he wanted to hurt her, just in a way that said he wanted to _win_.

He was good. Larger and stronger than she was, but also nearly as fast. He was smart, calculating, and willing to fight dirty. No wonder Varel’s men had had trouble with him.

He feigned a leg sweep, changing at the last second to land a solid blow in her stomach. “I came here to kill you, you know,” he murmured in her ear as she doubled over.

“Don’t worry,” she rasped, trapping his sword against her stomach and using the opening to strike hard under his shoulder joint. He grunted and stepped back from her. “I don’t take it personally. Some of my best friends have tried to kill me.”

That made him pause, and she tried to exploit the opening to get a few hits in, but he moved almost instinctively to block her attempt. “What makes you think I won’t try to kill you now?” It was an empty threat, either a test or an attempt to drop her guard. Progress.

Cait smirked, unable to catch her breath enough to laugh. “You’re welcome to try.” He lunged again, but instead of sidestepping she moved forward, getting under his guard. She flowed around him and brought the pommel of her dagger down on the back of his neck. He collapsed to the mat. “When you’re done, maybe we can sit down and actually _talk_ about this.”

He rolled onto his back and stabbed up toward her. She only barely dodged in time. “There is _nothing_ to talk about,” Nathaniel said as he climbed to his feet.

“Right,” Cathain said. One of her hands was numb; she dropped the blade it held and kicked it away. “Nothing. Certainly not the _eight years_ since we last saw each other. Or the fact that we’re here beating each other up instead of any of the _much_ more pleasant ways I always imagined this reunion going.”

Nathaniel roared and rushed at her again and she was too slow to dodge. It was all she could do to get her one remaining blade up between them before he shoved her hard against the wall, practice sword to her throat. “I win,” he growled breathlessly.

“Are you sure?” Cathain pressed her wooden dagger a little harder into his ribs where she held it in the minuscule space between them. If this had been a real fight, with real blades, they’d both be dead.

They stayed there for several long moments, faces inches apart and breath loud in the empty room. She couldn’t read the look on his face. He looked like he wanted to press his sword closer until she couldn’t breathe. He looked like he wanted to kiss her. He looked like he wanted to keep fighting. He looked like he wanted to run.

In the end, he did none of those things. He dropped his sword to the floor with a clatter and pulled away from her enough to lean against the wall next to her. He slid down it to sit. After a second of hesitation, she sat next to him.

Now that they were here, Cathain didn’t know where to start. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to justify her actions. She wanted to tell him that she missed him. She did none of those things, instead just letting the silence build between them.

“I’ve been speaking with your… Zevran,” Nathaniel said softly. He sounded so _weary_ ; Cait clenched her fists in her lap to stop herself from reaching out to him out of habit. “He told me a little about what happened in Highever. About… what my father did. Was he exaggerating?”

Cathain leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. “Probably not. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Nathaniel said. She could feel his eyes on her, but kept hers closed. “You’ve never given me reason not to trust you before, I just didn’t want to believe my father could be capable of… something like that. I’ve been cruel and stubborn. You deserve better.”

“You’ve always been stubborn,” she smiled slightly and was gratified when he chuckled. “You deserve better too. From me, and from the King, and from the Grey Wardens. Your family shouldn’t have to suffer because of your father’s actions.”

He didn’t say anything in response, but Cait didn’t really expect him to. The tension he’d been carrying had finally left him and the silence between them was almost comfortable; that was enough for now.

She heard a small thud as his head hit the wall next to hers. Nathaniel’s voice was very low and very close when he spoke again. “This isn’t how I pictured you becoming Arlessa of Amaranthine.”

_That_ made her sit up and look at him. He was the picture of relaxation, head tilted back and forearms resting on his knees, but she could see the shrewdness in his half-closed eyes. The way he studied her made warmth bloom in her chest.

“ _Obviously_ ,” Cathain said too quickly, but with thankfully just enough glibness, “once we got too old for suitors to be interested, Delilah and I were going to get married and rule Amaranthine as spinsters together.”

Nathaniel laughed, a full and joyous sound that made the room a little brighter simply by merit of its existence. “And what age were you when you came up with this foolproof plan?”

“We were 10, and the plan was very sound, thank you,” Cait tried to look offended, but his laughter was infectious. “It held up well until one summer Fergus and I came to visit and your voice had changed and you were a foot taller. It was all downhill from there.”

His eyes were still full of laughter and a warmth that had been missing the last few weeks. “I’m sorry to have ruined all your plans, but I’m afraid I don’t regret it.” His smile faded into a look of contemplation. “Have you heard from Delilah since…” he trailed off, but she understood. There were a lot of things that could be _since..._ and none of them were pleasant.

She shook her head. “Not in a few years, actually. I was going to ask Zevran to look for her while he’s in town.” A look of panic crossed Nathaniel’s face and Cait held up her hands. “Not like _that_! I just mean he’s very good at finding people.”

Nathaniel thought about that for a moment. Finally, he asked “And you _trust_ him? Even though he tried to kill you?”

“Technically, _he_ didn’t try to kill me. _Loghain_ tried to kill me and used Zev to do it,” she knew it was splitting hairs, but the difference was important to her. She added, “But yes, I trust him. More than most.”

“ _Loghain_ sent assassins after you,” he said incredulously, “and you traveled with him as well?”

“I… yes. It sounds kind of reckless when you put it like that.” Cathain felt strangely defensive of the former teryn; Loghain had made some very poor decisions in the name of good intentions, but they’d grown to understand each other and even, after a time, become close friends.

“Some of your best friends have tried to kill you, indeed,” Nathaniel chuckled. “I guess I thought you were joking.”

He dropped the subject, though, and instead climbed to his feet with a groan. “Maker’s blood, I think I’m made of more bruises than skin. You sure know how to put a man in his place.”

“You needed someone to knock some sense into you,” she said as he offered her a hand and helped her to her feet. “Maybe you shouldn’t have led with ‘I came here to kill you’ and I would have gone easier on you.”

The smile was gone from Nathaniel’s face as if it had never been there. “Caitie, I’m–”

She put a hand on his chest and shoved him lightly, just enough to knock him off balance. “Nathaniel Howe, if you apologize to me again, I’m going to knock you around the mat for another round.”

He stepped forward into her personal space, catching her hand and holding it against his chest, where she had minutes ago held a blade on him. She could feel his heartbeat through her palm. His eyes and voice were intense when he said, “I’m sorry, Caitie.”

Cathain tried to shove him again, but this time he didn’t budge. She sighed; she didn’t have the energy left to fight him on this. It was hard to stay properly righteous when he was so close. “We both screwed up, okay? Let’s just… start over.”

“Start over,” Nathaniel mused. The look on his face was somewhere between awe and skepticism until it spread into a rare, gentle smile. “As you wish.”

He was still quiet around Vigil’s Keep after that. He still stalked the edges of her vision as she went about the business of being Commander and Arlessa and rebuilding the damage done by war and neglect to both the keep and to the people. He no longer maintained a hostile silence, however, occasionally offering advice or a dry quip; once, he even attempted conversation with Anders. But mostly he just watched and waited, never too close but never far away.

When finally, _finally_ , things had settled down at the Vigil enough for her to pursue interests outside the keep, Cait found Nathaniel waiting for her outside her room. He was in his armor, bow strung and slung over his shoulder.

As soon as he saw her, he growled, “I’m going with you.”

She fought to keep her face serious. “You don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m going with you.”

She pretended to think it over, as if she hadn’t already planned to ask him along. As if she had ever even considered leaving him behind. “Tell Anders and Oghren to suit up. We leave in 20.”

Nathaniel gave her shoulder a quick, friendly squeeze. “Thank you,” he said. Cathain wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for, exactly, but he was gone before she could ask. She watched the empty hallway for a long minute before she went to her room to get dressed. Her shoulder was still warm where he’d touched her, and for the first time in a long time she felt something like hope.


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group hits the road. They don't get very far.

"Amaranthine, the Jewel of the North. How charming," Anders said sourly as he wrapped his cloak tighter around himself. "If you like rain. And mud."

A gentle spring rain fell around them, the kind that soaks the earth and helps things grow. Cathain turned her face up toward the sky and said softly, "I _love_ Amaranthine. My brother and I stayed here every summer - right here, at the Vigil - and I wanted nothing more than to stay all year."

"Is that why you've been moping around the last month? Because you're so _happy_ to be here?" He said flippantly. His grin was wide and lecherous, but it didn't reach his eyes, leaving them sharply considering and full of something approaching genuine concern.

She pressed her palm against the familiar, sun-warmed bark of a large ash tree, its branches laden with delicate new leaves. Her head was full of days gone by, of sitting under this tree with Delilah making flower crowns, of climbing up into its canopy until she couldn't be seen from the ground. She sounded sad to her own ears when she said, "It's full of ghosts now. Memories of what it was and could have been." Nathaniel shifted in her periphery, adjusting a strap on his armor, and she added, quietly, "Some more solid than others."

Whatever Anders saw on her face, he put a firm arm around her back and pulled her away from the tree and back into the center courtyard. He was stronger than she expected from a scrawny man in robes. "So tell me, Caitie--"

"Cait," she corrected gently. A shadow passed over Nathaniel's face as they walked past him, dwelling on his own ghosts. She tried to catch his eye, but he still stared at the tree.

Anders steered her attention back to him and her feet towards the road. She heard Oghren fall into step behind them with a clatter of armor; she didn't hear Nathaniel, but she knew he followed. Byron ran alongside them, stopping to sniff at anything he thought looked interesting. Anders kept talking, voice so cheerful it had to be an affectation. " _Cait_. When's the last time you were here?"

She pretended she had to think about it, giving herself time to keep any sadness or nostalgia out of her voice and eyes. "Eight years ago. Nathaniel left for the Free Marches, Delilah went to university, and Thomas left to… do whatever it was Thomas did. Chase skirts and drink wine, most likely. With them gone, there was no reason for me to visit."

She saw Anders connect the dots, hearing all the things she hadn't said. He was _much_ smarter than he let on, and Cathain cursed herself for underestimating him. "Nathaniel _him_? You were childhood friends?" He pointed over their shoulders at Nate, who was pretending not to listen, watching the small crowd as if the keep were full of enemies. Maybe to him it was.

Anders turned to walk backwards, planting a hand on Cait's shoulder to keep from tripping. He raised his voice to ask "Why would _anyone_ want to be in the Free Marches for eight years? What could you _possibly_ have been doing?"

"Not _chasing skirts and drinking wine_ ," Nathaniel sneered. He must have moved closer or she doubted she'd have heard him. She refused to let herself look back at him.

Cait's mouth started moving without any input from her brain. "No, you prefer to pluck your women out of trees if I recall."

Nathaniel huffed, a sigh or a laugh. "Better than waiting for them to fall on you."

"Oh, I get it!" Anders announced, still watching Nathaniel with that same sharp scrutiny he'd given Cait before. "You two had a thing! That explains all the" he wiggled his fingers and his eyebrows " _looks_."

"I was under the impression we still had 'a thing,'" Cait muttered, hoping she was quiet enough that it didn't carry to Nathaniel, "but I guess that remains to be seen."

She risked a glance at Anders' face. His expression was a mix of compassion and a worrying amount of gleeful scheming. 

She scrambled to change the subject. "Anders, you don't like dogs, rain, or mud, why are you even in Ferelden? Those are our three biggest exports."

Thankfully, Anders took the bait. He turned back around and stopped studying Nathaniel like he was trying to read his mind. "This may have escaped your notice, Cait, but I am an apostate."

Cathain linked her arm with his as they walked. She could feel the bones in his elbow and forearm clearly under the soft linen of his robes. She made a note to increase his rations until he gained back the weight he'd lost on the run; he made a note of her noticing. Then she smiled at him and said, "Yes, but you could be an apostate just the same in Antiva, or Rivain, or the Free Marches."

He put a hand to his chest, dramatically offended. "Are you telling me to leave? We're just getting to know each other."

Cait laughed. "Against my better judgement I'm growing rather fond of you. I'd rather you don't leave, I'm just saying you _can_. If you want to." She squeezed his arm. "The Vigil is not meant to be another cage."

Anders stared at her as if he'd never seen her before, expression raw and broken and honest. Cait wondered at how bad his life had truly been beyond his offhand stories of Circle escapes, if such an innocuous comment got a reaction like this. She wondered if he'd ever had a friend before. She wanted to hug him.

She kept talking, voice light, giving him time to put himself back together. "Cage or no, I'm glad to be back on the road. I was starting to go stir crazy."

"Wasn't your father a teryn or something?" Anders asked, voice only a little rough. "Shouldn't you want to stay inside and wear pretty dresses? Have tea parties?"

"The only one of us wearing a pretty dress is _you_ , Anders."

He touched the silver griffin emblazoned on the chest of his Grey Warden robes. "A pretty dress _you_ picked out for me."

They didn't talk much after that, especially once they'd left the keep's walls. Oghren perked up after a while, the warm rain and promise of battle clearing the worst of his hangover, and Anders stepped back to chat with him for a while. They spoke in low voices that barely carried to Cait where she walked at the front of their little band, but the bits she caught were mostly bawdy jokes and friendly threats.

She felt Nathaniel join her more than heard him, his shoulders tense and scowl dark as he watched the woods around them.

"You and Anders seem close," he growled, barely louder than the scrape of their boots on the road.

Cait stared up at him, but he still wouldn't look her way. "Is that a problem?" she asked carefully.

"I didn't say that," Nathaniel finally looked at her and his scowl was replaced by a chagrined little smile. "That came out wrong. I didn't mean to sound jealous, I was trying to make conversation." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "It seems I've forgotten how."

She linked her arm with his, like she had with Anders earlier but also so much different. "He's just a friend, Nate."

"I know," he said. He turned his eyes back to the woods and added, "That's what you used to tell people about me."

She bit her lip to quiet her laugh. "Not quite. 'Nathaniel is my friend' is the truth. 'Nathaniel is _just_ a friend' would have been a lie. You've never been _just_ anything."

He covered her hand with his where it rested in the crook of his elbow. "Neither have you." His voice was as intense and warm as a summer day and it brushed her skin like a physical thing.

She almost didn't sense the ambush until it was too late.

She felt the buzzing in her blood, different from the feeling of her fellow Wardens, only moments before everything exploded into motion. But it was enough; when the first shrieks appeared, she was ready enough to dodge the rake of claws at her face.

The first died quickly to a volley of arrows. The second to her own blades and the third fell silent under Byron's snapping jaws. Then the next wave arrived and there was only chaos.

They had never fought as a unit and it showed. Oghren and Cait were used to flanking rather than taking the brunt of the attack, but without Loghain and his uncanny ability to make things want to hit him, they found themselves on the defensive. Nathaniel was a good shot, but clearly not used to aiming around people, and kept hesitating for fear of friendly fire. Anders had no such concerns; Cait's left arm went numb after a brush with lightning, and Oghren's beard was nearly set on fire. Only Byron was truly on his game, filling gaps in defenses, flanking, tearing limbs and throats and heads from darkspawn with a simple, canine glee.

Cait didn't see the hurlock alpha until it was upon her. It burst through the pack of lesser darkspawn, sword raised. She parried, only barely getting a dagger up in time, but it left her guard open.

His shield slammed hard into her face. She felt bone break and skin split from the force of it. Her mouth filled with the copper-sweet taste of blood; her vision went black and the world tilted alarmingly beneath her.

She didn't know if she lost consciousness, but she was pretty sure she didn't die. She's aware of Byron pressed to her side, warm and worried. The buzzing faded as the others picked the remaining darkspawn off, replaced by the throbbing of her heart in her ears.

When all she could feel in her blood was pain and Grey Wardens, Cait let herself collapse, legs buckling like a discarded marionette. Someone caught her. She tried to push them away, murmuring "I'm fine. I just need a minute."

Several voices spoke over each other and she could make none of them out. It took too much effort to concentrate on words over the pounding in her head. She should probably be concerned, too, that her vision hadn't righted itself, but lacked the energy for that as well.

"Hold still. You need healing," a voice said to her. She turned toward it and the world tilted again. Her knees gave out and this time the hands holding her couldn't stop her descent.

"I think you may be right," Cait said, or thought she said.

Something touched her head and set it on fire. She screamed and tried to fight it off, swinging wildly. Something else pinned her arms and she tried to fight it too. Blind and desperate, she trashed against the prison, but it held fast. It touched her face again, but the fire was quenched by warm, soothing blue light.

The light faded and took the pain with it, and Cait followed them into nothingness.

\-------

The first thing Cait saw when she awoke was Anders' warm honey-brown eyes. He was wrapping a bandage around her head, but he didn't look surprised when she opened her eyes. "Have a nice nap?" he made no effort to hide the relief in his voice.

She looked past him. The rain had stopped, but the sun hadn't moved much since last she saw it, so she likely hadn't been out long. Or she'd been out a full day.

Oghren was setting up camp, erecting tents and getting the campfire started. He very pointedly didn't look their way, which meant he was worried. It must've been worse than she thought if _Oghren_ was worried; she'd seen him nearly lose a leg and try to walk it off.

Nathaniel knelt by Byron, face serious as he gave the dog orders. Byron listened with a true mabari gravitas. He took a note gently from Nate's hand and ran off, back toward the keep.

Nathaniel watched the dog run up the road for a moment, shoulders stiff, then turned back toward them. He opened his mouth to say something, but when his eyes met hers he froze. His face was unguarded anguish, and in the seconds it took to school his expression, Cait saw the answers to a lot of questions.

She dropped her head back onto whatever they'd given her as a pillow - from the combined scent of it, the boys had all given her their cloaks. She closed her eyes against the afternoon sun, releasing Nathaniel from her contemplation.

"Do you remember your name?" Anders asked. His tone told her it wasn't the first time he'd asked it.

"Cathain Elissa Cousland. Hero of Ferelden, Vanquisher of the Fifth Blight, Commander of the Grey, Chancellor to Queen Anora, Arlessa of Amaranthine. It's been a few weeks, they've probably added more blighted titles since then."

Anders laughed. It sounded like he was walking around her, doing whatever healers did when they weren't sure if they were finished working yet. "Do you remember what happened?"

Cait pushed a few stray strands of hair out of her face; her arms were slower to respond than usual. "I got _hit_ in the _face_ ," she muttered. "Drills. We are going to do so many drills when we get back to the Vigil."

"Agreed," Nathaniel said softly, voice so low she felt it more than heard it. "This can't happen again."

Cait sighed. "I'll send a raven to Loghain. Unless you have any experience training soldiers?"

"I'm afraid not."

The silence was loud with things unsaid. Cait could feel her heartbeat in her forehead, over her right eye. She wondered if she'd have another scar there, a mate for the other she had. It had been from a shield bash too, Loghain at the Landsmeet. She should adjust her guard to keep it from happening again.

"Okay," Anders said a little too loudly. "Don't let her overexert herself, she needs rest. I'll be right over there if you need me."

Cait reached out a hand and Anders grasped it warmly and gave it a little pat before turning to leave. She opened her eyes enough to exchange a smile.

"Anders," Nathaniel called, looking like it caused him physical pain to force the words out, "thank you."

Anders just winked at him and walked over to Oghren, giving them the illusion of privacy.

Nate caught her watching them as he turned back to her, but instead of the scowl she expected, the corner of his mouth turned up in a tiny, embarrassed smile. Now that he was closer, she could see a nasty bruise blooming across one cheekbone. He took her hand as soon as she held it out to him and sat on the ground next to her.

"How bad was it?" Cathain asked, because she knew he'd tell the truth. "Was anyone else hurt?"

"Several skull fractures, broken jaw and nose, severe concussion," he said as blandly as if he were talking about the weather, "You have a killer headache, I imagine. Only cuts and bruises with the rest of us. I sent Byron back to the keep to warn Varel. If the darkspawn have other ambushes set up, his people will find them."

"Good. Good." She closed her eyes again. He wasn't kidding about the headache; it felt like an arrow was lodged behind her eyes.

"Caitie," he whispered intensely, "if we hadn't had a mage here…"

"But we did. And I'm okay." She squeezed his hand. She could feel the tension radiating from him. "I've had worse." Not _much_ worse, but he probably didn't want to hear that.

"Worse? Caitie, you almost died!" 

"But I didn't," Cathain said, sharper than intended. She struggled to sit up and Nathaniel assisted with a hand between her shoulders. It was only when she tried to stand that he moved to stop her.

"Anders said rest." He put his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to keep her seated. "You need to stay put."

"I don't have the luxury to rest. There's too few of us right now." She broke his hold and stood before he had time to recover. Her vision spun. She planted her feet and stubbornly refused to stumble as equilibrium reestablished itself. 

When she felt stable again, she said "I'm going to patrol the area. If there are more darkspawn nearby, I want to know about them now rather than lay there like an invalid waiting for them to finish me off. You can come with me if you'd like, as long as you don't coddle me."

"As you wish, Commander," Nathaniel growled, too low to tell if it was anger or affection in his voice.

He didn't hover, but he wanted to. He kept his hands by his sides, but stayed at her arm, ready to catch her if she stumbled. They were barely out of sight of camp before she was tired of it and linked her arm in his to give him the illusion of assisting her.

And if Cait leaned on him a little to keep her steps steady, that was her secret.

They walked in silence, listening to the chatter of birds and rustling of leaves, alert for anything amiss. The forest was still and the only hum of darkspawn taint Cait could feel was in the man she walked beside.

Nathaniel stopped suddenly and turned to her. His hands hovered, a brief but poignant hesitation, before settling firmly on her shoulders. "There's no one here but you and me. Tell me the truth. Are you okay?"

"I'm… alive." It wasn't the answer he wanted, but it's all she had to give. "Sometimes, that's the best I can hope for."

"There was a moment there that I thought you weren't. That you--" he broke off and looked away.

"Hey," she put her hands on his face and pulled his eyes back to hers. "Don't dwell on it. The what-ifs will drive you mad if you let them. I'm alive. You're alive. It's enough."

"It's enough," he repeated.

His grip on her shoulders loosened and he slid his hands down to her biceps. She was suddenly very aware of how close he was and the position they were in, her hands on his face and his hands on her arms and so close that the buckles on their armor scraped against each other when they moved.

He saw it too. He covered her hands with his, pulled them down until they rested on his chest in a mirror of the fight they had barely a week ago. "Caitie…" he breathed.

Her head reeled from his nearness (and, most likely, from the concussion). She could see the exact moment the thought crossed his mind that he wanted to kiss her, when his eyes dropped to her lips, and she carefully pulled away before he could ask. Before she had to tell him no.

It wasn't a rejection, just a _delay_. What a strange feeling, to not be ready to kiss a man when you've already kissed him a thousand times before. But that was in a different life. A life in which they both had happy, living families. A life in which they were carefree children whose worst injuries came from falling out of trees, not onto darkspawn blades.

She wanted to tell him that, but the words got lost on the way, slipping through the newly-mended cracks in her skull. What came out was a truth, though not the one she'd been reaching for, "We should get back to the others. I think… I overestimated my recovery."

If he felt slighted, he hid it well. He gave her a wicked grin, the kind she'd have expected more from his brother Thomas or a man like Anders than from quiet, serious Nathaniel. It made her immediately regret her decision not to kiss him. "Do you need me to carry you, Caitie?"

"Nate, don't you dare. I swear to Andraste, if you try you'll lose a hand."

\-------

It was just before sunset when he carried her back to camp. She had collapsed less than halfway back after a _minor_ dizzy spell, but no matter how much she asserted that she was _fine now, truly, perfectly capable of walking_ , he would not put her down. On the way back, she'd had time to go through indignation and anger and had just reached begrudging compliance when they spotted the tents.

Anders lectured her all the way through dinner and lectured her more as he unbuckled layer after layer of her armor - without a single lewd remark, even - until she was in the simple tunic and breeches she wore underneath. He even took her damned boots.

Oghren, Anders, and Nathaniel agreed unanimously that she didn't get a turn on watch tonight. She tried pointing out that she was the Commander, that she gave the orders, not them, but it fell on deaf ears.

"If your dog were here, I'd have him sit on you to keep you in bed!" Anders concluded.

"Every healer I've ever met thinks they're my mother," Cait pouted, but didn't try to leave her bedroll again. She stared up at the darkening sky.

"What was she like?" Anders asked, once it was clear that Cathain wouldn't be sleeping yet. "Your mother?"

"She was…" _implacable, proud, fierce_. All of the parts of Cait that made her a good Lady came from her father, but the parts of her that made her a leader were from her mother. None of that was what Anders would want to hear, though. "Have you heard _The Soldier and the Seawolf_? It was written about my parents."

"Bullshit!" Anders laughed, a quick, joyful bark of sound. "I know I grew up in a cage, but you can't really expect me to believe your mother was the Seawolf."

"She was. Eleanor Mac Eanraig, daughter of the Storm Giant, captain of the _Mistral_ , teyrna of Highever." Cait laid her head back against her pillow, watching the stars come out. She wondered what Mother and Father would think of her now. If they would be proud or disappointed. 

She kept talking, the words pouring out of her like water. "My father was Bryce Cousland. He served under Loghain during the rebellion. He was always so proud of the part he played." She sighed deeply. "And now Loghain serves under me."

"I bet he does," Anders leered, and Cait didn't need to look at him to see the grin on his face.

Cait closed her eyes. "Please tell me you aren't implying what I think you are."

Oghren cackled. "You did share a lot of _intense looks_ , Commander."

"It's _Loghain_. Every look he shares with anyone is intense, it's the only way he does anything." Cait said incredulously, scrambling to figure out how they even got on this subject. "That doesn't mean we were _sleeping together_."

"I'm just saying, you clearly have a type. Dark hair, blue eyes, the scowl, even the same nose!" Anders' voice shifted; most likely, he'd turned his leer in Nathaniel's direction. "Now I think on it, are you sure you're a Howe and not a Mac Tir?"

"Anders," Nathaniel growled, low and dangerous. "You saved Cait's life today, so I am trying to be patient, but if you keep talking I am going to throttle you."

"Hey, I don't mean to offend you! I'm quite fond of the Howes!" He giggled and barely stifled his laughter as he added, "I'm also fond of the Whys, the Whos and the Whats."

"Anders!" Cait shouted, but a helpless little laugh escaped.

"I'm sorry!" Anders laughed, not sorry in the slightest. "I couldn't resist."

"I'm going to tell him you said that," Cathain warned. Her head was finally starting to clear, her body warm and heavy with the promise of sleep. "I'm writing to him as soon as we get back to the Vigil. 'Dear Loghain, Please come to Amaranthine and help us not be terrible soldiers. Also my friend thinks we're supposed to be lovers, so please come prepared. Love, Cathain'."

"Caitie," Anders said warmly, laughter still in his voice, "you said I'm your friend!"

"Don't be stupid, of course you're my friend. As if I'd put up with any of this shit otherwise." She yawned, then added, "And it's _Cait_."

"You let _Nathaniel_ call you Caitie."

"I have let _Nathaniel_ do a lot of things that you will never get to," she muttered, startling a laugh out of Nate. She grinned "I'll tell you what, Anders. If you stick around for a year before you inevitably get bored and wander off, I will let you call me Caitie."

"Deal."

The boys kept chatting for a while longer, the topic thankfully steered away from what disgraced nobles Cathain may or may not be sleeping with, but she was too tired to keep up with it. She let the warmth of the fire and hum of their voices wash over her until sleep finally claimed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a full-time mom and am writing this is my spare time while also trying to replay Awakening to make sure I have in game details correct, so updates will be kinda sporadic, but they will happen!


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cait and Nate have a moment. The party makes it to Blackmarsh and regret it almost immediately.

Cait was awoken the next morning by Byron's sloppy puppy kisses on his triumphant return to camp. He climbed all over her, tail wagging furiously, until she was able to push him away enough to sit up.

She rubbed his ears as he nuzzled at the poultice on her forehead. "Hey, buddy. Did you finish your mission from Nathaniel?" He barked happily and she laughed. "Good boy. Who's my fierce Grey Warden? Who's the best pup in Ferelden?" Byron rolled over on his back so she could pet his belly. "That's right! It's you!"

He wouldn't leave her side all morning. She had to eat breakfast, change into clean clothes, and buckle her armor back on with Byron's shoulder pressed hard against her hip. He didn't back off until they were on the road again, and even then only far enough that they wouldn't trip over each other.

They walked at a slower pace today than the day before, wary of another ambush, but the conversation flowed easily enough. It wasn't much different than her travels before; different faces (except Oghren), but the camaraderie was familiar. Last time she'd traveled in a group this small, though, had been after Lothering, and she missed the comparative safety of a larger group. At least this time her friends mostly got along. Compared to trying to travel with Alistair and Morrigan at each other's throats, being Commander of the Grey was a walk in the park.

"You know, Oghren," said Anders cheerfully, "maybe we should get you a shield. While it's only the four of us, you might be more useful as a meat shield than… whatever you call it that you normally do."

"You know, Anders," Oghren said, less cheerfully, "maybe we should get you a set of armor so you won't fall apart like a wet paper bag if a darkspawn walks too close to you."

"Maybe we should get Nate a sword," Anders added.

Oghren giggled. "Heh heh, do you think he knows which end to hold?"

"Would you like to find out?" Nathaniel growled.

"Nah," Oghren was laughing so hard now he stumbled, almost collapsing to the road. "Wouldn't want to make the Commander jealous."

They were still a day out from the Blackmarsh, and even though it was early afternoon the sky grew darker with every step. It felt heavy, like a storm was coming, but the darkening sky remained cloudless. The ground started to feel softer, springy under Cathain's boots, and the air smelled of still water and rotting vegetation and something sour that stood out from the normal marsh scents. 

Cait stepped up to the front of the group, where Nathaniel had taken the lead. He had his bow in hand, sharp eyes on the thickening woodland for anything amiss. She waited until he glanced her way until she said anything; he looked liable to jump at the slightest provocation.

"What do you remember of Blackmarsh?" She asked quietly. Something in the air made her want to whisper.

"Ghost stories," he replied in the same hushed tone. "Tales Adria and your Nan used to tell us to keep us out of it. I never really thought there was anything to them until now."

"Is that why I could never convince you or Thomas to come exploring with me? You were scared of ghosts?" A bird exploded out from a nearby bush, startled out of hiding by their passage. Cait gasped and reached for her blades, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Nathaniel steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. His laughter was warm in her ear. "Yes, how silly of us, to be scared of ghosts. Would that we all had your fortitude."

"I'm just _saying_ ," Cait said. She stepped away from him reluctantly, trying to ignore the prickle of Oghren's and Anders' stares on the back of her neck. "Going to explore a spooky swamp would have been an excellent excuse to have two or three days alone."

"Then you should have led with that _then_ ," Nathaniel practically purred at her, "or left your friends at home _now_."

Cait stared at him slack-jawed. "You are a cruel and wicked tease and I hate you," she told him with no real heat behind it.

His laugh pushed back the encroaching darkness a little.

\-------

It was two hours past full dark when they finally stopped to rest, though it had been dark long before the sun had set. The gibbous moon hung large and nearly full in the sky, but none of its light seemed to make it down to their little fire.

They set up camp in silence, the shroud over Blackmarsh stifling conversation as quickly as it started. Cathain hoped they wouldn't be there long, that they wouldn't need to spend a night in the swamp itself. The shadow of the marsh felt like a living thing, like icy fingers on her neck. She found herself twitching at the smallest breeze, as if even the air and trees were her enemies, and saw the same niggling fear in her companions' eyes.

Once the stew was started, Cait turned to find a place to sit down and nearly ran right into Anders. He grabbed her shoulders to keep her from falling into the fire, looking startled for only a moment before his face rearranged itself into a familiar sly grin. "Throwing yourself at me already, Cait? What will the others think?"

When she didn't push him away immediately, still trying to regain her balance, Anders stepped a little closer. He grabbed her chin in one long-fingered hand and gently but firmly forced her eyes to his. Those eyes didn't hold any of the smile still painted across his face, and he studied her shrewdly, almost clinically.

"Are you going to kiss me, mage?" Cait whispered, because it's what she knew he wanted her to say.

"Only if you beg for it, Commander." He stared at her for another long moment before abruptly releasing her as if it had never happened. "Looks like you're mostly recovered from your incident yesterday. How's your head?"

"Attached. Bit of a headache, but I can function through it." She stood where he had released her for a second, getting her bearings. Just when she thought she had a handle on who Anders was, he did something like that. She shook herself and sat down on the nearest seat by the fire. "You could've just asked, you know. You didn't have to get all _handsy_."

"You'd just lie. You're lying about it right now, in fact. Besides, how could I miss out on the look on his face?" Anders nodded behind her. Cait followed his gaze to Nathaniel, who was past the edge of camp gathering firewood. He was too far away to hear them talking, most likely, and he was frozen just outside the light from the fire. The look on his face was… complicated. "Your boyfriend looks like he's about to have an aneurysm."

"He's not my--" Cait started, an old habit, but Anders interrupted with a scoff.

"He _wants_ to be. You want him to be. I'm not stupid, Cait, despite appearances."

"It's not like that. It's never been anything… official." She thought back to summers past, sneaking into his room after everyone was asleep and back to her own bed before dawn, stealing moments in shadowed alcoves.

Cait pried her eyes away from Nate back to the fire. She wrung her hands in her lap, suddenly restless. "His father would never have approved."

"His father isn't around anymore, if I recall." He popped a piece of dried fruit into his mouth. "Just something to think about."

"What's something to think about?" Nathaniel asked gruffly as he joined them by the fire.

"I'm trying to convince our stubborn and illustrious leader to take tonight off," Anders lied easily. He threw a piece of fruit at Nathaniel, who plucked it out of the air and threw it back. It hit Anders in the forehead. "Ow!"

Nate sat down across the fire from them. "Is your head still bothering you, Caitie?"

"It's tolerable. _Really_. You all worry too much." It was worse than she let on, a sharp spiking pain that increased in the bright glow of the fire, but she could tune it out enough to do her job so she wasn't _quite_ lying. Still, she was happy to latch onto the lie Anders offered. "And I already told you, Anders, I am not a child, and I don't appreciate being treated like one."

"I'll make you a deal," he sighed as if they actually had been having this argument for a while. He was a frighteningly good actor. "I'll let you take a shift tonight, under the condition that you take first watch with Nathaniel instead of a watch on your own. You still get to be useful and I don't have to worry that the concussion _you still have_ \- and I can see it in your eyes no matter how pig-headed you try to be - will cause you to lose focus while you're alone."

 _Oh_. So that was his game. Cait felt backed into a corner. "I… deal," she said through clenched teeth. "But for the record, I am fine."

Dinner that night was a somber affair, the darkness so thick Cathain couldn't see anything past their little circle of tents. Even Oghren was remarkably sober and silent, two things she'd never seen from him before. He went to bed immediately after he was done eating and, after more waggled eyebrows and pointed looks, so did Anders. Bryon settled at her feet with a weary _boof_.

As soon as they were gone, Nathaniel came around the fire to sit next to her. Byron put his head in his lap and he absently scratched the dog's ears. "What is with him tonight?" He asked quietly, nodding toward Anders' tent.

"He fancies himself as a matchmaker, apparently." Cait sighed, too tired to try and come up with a convincing lie. "I guess they don't teach subtlety in the Circle tower."

"He's about thirteen years late on that," he chuckled. "I was under the impression that he _knew_ that."

Cait ignored the accusation in his tone, and said, "I think he's read too many of those romance books Delilah liked to read. He's disappointed I haven't fallen helplessly into your arms."

"I think I remember those books," Nathaniel murmured, smile warm in the deep darkness. His voice shook with barely contained laughter. "Aren't I supposed to be wearing a billowy shirt with the breeze fluttering through the hair on my chest? Perhaps while reciting poetry or staring longingly at the ocean?"

"You have chest hair now? Mmm, that's new." Cait pushed that image out of her head, lovely as it was. "I think the billowing shirt is supposed to be under your armor, which I remove with my dainty and trembling fingers. Probably while wearing a clinging silk dress."

"Hmm, dainty, trembling, and helpless. If I had to pick three words to describe you…"

Cait covered her face with her hands to stifle her giggles. "I've never been very good at playing the damsel."

"Aye," Nathaniel chuckled, caught up in her laughter, "but I wouldn't want it any other way."

Cathain felt her face flush, pleased and embarrassed in equal measure. She started to undo her braid so she wouldn't fidget, unplaiting it and combing it straight with her fingers. "Your accent's gone a bit Marcher," she said, to change the subject a little and fill the oppressive quiet.

"Has it? I suppose it makes sense, but I never noticed." He scratched at his jaw, running his fingers over the layer of stubble accumulated from two days on the road. It seemed like the same nervous not-fidgeting that she was doing, and drew a fond smile to her lips.

"I like it. It's…" _it helps remind me of how much time has passed, it makes you sound less like your father, it does interesting things to the butterflies in my stomach when you say my name_ "nice."

He didn't say anything in response. Instead, he just stared at her in the flickering firelight, looking like he was trying to solve a puzzle and the answer was written somewhere on her face. 

Cait tried to stare back for a while, but the intensity and curiosity in his gaze left her flustered, so she turned back to the fire instead, trying and failing to see past it into the woods around them. The night may as well have been a wall of black stone; neither light nor sound nor wind penetrated it at all.

She gasped as Nathaniel's warm, calloused fingers touched her cheek. Her hair had fallen into her face now that it was freed from its plait, and he pushed it gently back behind her ear.

"I've never seen your hair this long before," he said softly. Cait could barely hear him over the pounding of her heart.

"I… haven't had much opportunity to cut it." Her face felt hot again and she had trouble meeting his eyes.

"I like it." Nathaniel traced his finger along her jaw, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. "It's nice."

"You stop that," Cait said, flustered. She pushed his hand away resolutely, but he didn't let her back away entirely, catching her hand between his. He still had his archery gloves on and she still had her fingerless ones. The contrast between cool leather and warm skin was… intriguing.

"'Shy' isn't a word I'd use to describe you either," he said with a sweet smile.

"We are supposed to be _working_." Cathain couldn't look at him, but she didn't try to pull her hand back. "I have enough trouble concentrating with this blighted headache, I don't need you being…" she couldn't think of a word, so she just waved her free hand in his direction, where he sat too close and entirely too pleased with himself, her mabari asleep halfway in his lap.

"Okay, okay. No more flirting tonight." Nathaniel still sounded far too amused with himself. He released her hand, but didn't stop staring. "It seems I'm a bit rusty anyway."

Cait crossed her arms over her chest. "Right. I'm sure you didn't have Marcher girls throwing themselves at you," she said, and was surprised at the amount of bitterness she heard in her own voice.

Nate started to say something and she cut him off. She stood up abruptly and put a few steps of space between them. She said in a rush, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean… I'm just being grumpy. It's none of my business anyway. I'm going to go walk perimeter for a bit, make sure nothing's trying to sneak up on us."

She stepped out of the light of the fire and into the solid night before he had a chance to reply.

\-------

Cathain was awake just before dawn. It was a pretty normal occurrence for her - especially out on the road - and she was dressed and ready in time to join Anders in silence as the sun rose at the end of his watch shift. It didn't do much to brighten the gloom of the Blackmarsh; even with the sun fully up, their camp was surrounded by deep twilight, but it at least pushed back some of the oppressiveness of the night.

Her headache hadn't gone away. It settled as a dull throbbing behind her right eye. Anders gave her another once over, thankfully less hands-on without an audience, but couldn't find any evidence of lingering injury. Most likely, it was an adverse reaction to the Blackmarsh itself; with luck, their business there would be done today and her head would clear as they left it behind.

She managed to do a passable job of avoiding Nathaniel for the most part, keeping conversation strictly on professional terms. The darkness helped; none of them had much energy to spend on conversation with the weight of the marsh pressing them down.

It gave her a lot of time to think. Too much time to think. She hadn't really thought much about what Nate might have gotten up to in the Free Marches outside of training. He'd always been very serious, even as a boy, preferring quiet and solitude over the taverns his brother Thomas frequented or the balls and parties Delilah enjoyed. 

But… well, 8 years was a long time. They had agreed not to wait for each other; they hadn't known if or when he'd ever return to Ferelden, if she'd ever get the opportunity to join him up north. He hadn't wanted to leave her with just 'someday'.

But she had waited. She was still waiting. Had he?

Cait's feeling on the matter shifted wildly as they walked. Sometimes she was resigned: it didn't matter what had happened before, it was in the past. Sometimes she felt possessive; she wanted to shove him against a tree and put her mouth and hands on him until he couldn't remember any touch but hers. Sometimes, more than she would care to admit, she felt self-conscious. She wondered what kind of women he would have met in the Free Marches. Women like in the romance books they'd talked about, fair and dainty, with long flowing hair and soft hands that had never touched a sword.

She wore her hair down instead of braiding it back up. She hoped he'd comment, but he didn't. All he did was stare; every time she looked his way, she found that he'd already been looking at her.

Around midday, they reached the swamp proper and progress slowed to a crawl. The mud sucked at their boots, the trees clawed at their hair and clothes, and every instinct Cait had screamed _Run! Leave! Get out while you can!_

She wished she was surprised when they found the first Fade tear.

"I _hate_ the Fade," she muttered vehemently. She crossed her arms defensively across her chest, tense for trouble as Anders did the Mage Thing, inspecting and hopefully repairing the rip in reality.

"What should we expect?" Nathaniel asked softly. He walked up to stand next to her as they watched Anders. 

Cathain felt the weight of his hand on her back, one small point of connection. She didn't move away. "If we're lucky, just demons. If we're unlucky, demons and weird shit. If we're _really_ unlucky, we get knocked unconscious and our spirits are sent into the Fade, where we have to deal with weird shit at the whims of a demon."

"I feel like there's a story there. Maybe you can tell it to me over drinks sometime." His voice was very close, but she refused to look and see just how close he was. Distraction could be fatal right now, and Nathaniel Howe was nothing if not a tall, blue-eyed distraction.

She did feel warm and a bit giddy at the suggestion, though. She found her voice enough to say, "Okay. I'd like that."

\-------

Their second attempt at working together in combat went better. It helped that blighted werewolves were not subtle creatures. It helped also that they had expected to be attacked for days, since the darkness set in.

Cait and Oghren made a point to stay apart, harrowing the same enemy from opposing sides so one of them was always flanking. It gave room for Nathaniel and Anders to sling arrows and spells with impunity, and Bryon stood back to stop anything that tried to approach them.

"Did they bite or scratch any of you?" Cait asked once the last werewolf fell. She inspected the bodies as if they held a clue to the Blackmarsh's mystery. They remained enigmatic. "We're immune to the taint, but not the werewolf curse."

"We're all fine, Caitie," Nathaniel said, tense and alert for more enemies. "I don't think we should dally here."

He was right, of course, and they moved on as quickly as they could. Cait really hoped Kristoff hadn't actually come here. She'd really like to find a living person at the end of one of these wild goose chases for a change.

She wasn't so lucky. Kristoff's camp was only recently abandoned. A few days, maybe a week at most. Long enough for dust and debris to settle in his cot, for the embers of his fire to burn out, but his tent still stood and the things within it - notes, a chest with a few simple belongings, a couple days' worth of food - hadn't been reclaimed by nature or predator.

Cait tucked his notes carefully into her bag and sighed. "I'm sorry, Kristoff."

Nathaniel's hand found her shoulder again, gave her a warm squeeze. "We might still find him."

"Yeah," said Anders, sounding much less optimistic than Nate. "Maybe he found what he was looking for and left. Maybe he's back at Vigil's Keep right now wondering where you are."

She touched Nate's hand briefly before she stepped out of his reach. "Your optimism is noted and appreciated. I hope it serves you for a very long time."

The town that had once been here was clearly abandoned, the buildings long since rotted away to skeletons and husks. It did not, however, feel _empty_. It felt as alive as if the entire population had just stepped out for lunch. Which, Cait supposed, was what the ghost stories said. That they all disappeared one day but their spirits still lingered.

She kept looking over her shoulder as they walked, catching flashes of light and movement in the corner of her eye. She tried to convince herself it was the trees or the sun glinting off the water, but there was no wind to blow through the bare branches of the trees, and the sun was hidden behind deep clouds and didn't reach the still lakes.

Everything in this marsh was creepier than the last. A huge, mostly intact dragon skull. An ominous ring of tall stones with a pedestal in the center, untouched by the ravages of time. A scavenger hunt leading to a proposal, a glimpse into the lives and love of people long gone.

Cait held the ring in the palm of her hand. The gold was still untarnished, the green stone set in it clear and bright. "I wonder if she would have said yes," she mused.

Nathaniel's voice was soft, contemplative. "Maybe they're still together, wherever they are."

"You are such a romantic," Cait murmured, much more fondly than she'd intended.

"One of us has to be."

Cait slipped the ring on her finger. It fit. She stared at it, fascinated. It made her feel strange in a way she couldn't quite understand. Like catching a glimpse of herself in another life.

She caught Nate watching her and removed the ring and shoved it in her pocket, embarrassed.

Not much farther along the trail, they found a body of a Grey Warden - and something much, _much_ worse. They were like giant grubs or maggots with almost human-like faces. If humans had mandibles like a spider and too many malicious, beady black eyes. They were in her blood, clearly darkspawn, but the pitch was wrong. Not the warm hum of her fellow Wardens or the buzzing undercurrent of normal darkspawn, but a high pitched whine that sent chills across her skin.

One of them tackled her, much faster than they should be. She got a dagger up into its mouth, stopping its mandibles from clamping down on her arm. Oghren brought his axe down on it, bisecting it in one blow and only barely stopping short of getting her as well.

In the wake of these… _monsters_ came something even worse, because that was apparently the kind of day Cait was going to have. A hurlock approached them and, like the one that had almost killed Varel, introduced himself. The First.

He spoke haltingly, with a mouth not made for human languages. Of a Mother, of The Children, of big problems about to fall on the heads of those Cait had sworn to protect.

She drew her blades and The First raised his hands and Cait discovered that her day could actually still get worse.

She stared up at the hazy, grey-brown sky, at the Black City always in the distance, and said with every ounce of rage in her soul, "I. Hate. The Fade."

"Are you sure you're not a mage?" Anders asked, looking more comfortable than any of the rest of them. Maybe mages were more used to traveling the Fade outside of dreams. He leaned against a barrel that appeared to be floating a foot off the ground. "Because you must have some sort of psychic powers."

"Yeah, it's called 'deja vu,' Cait grumbled. She put a hand on Oghren's shoulder to steady him as he silently freaked out. She wondered if the Fade looked different to dwarves, since they couldn't come here in dreams like others could. She wondered if he was the first dwarf to ever walk in the Fade. She'd ask him about it later, once they had stone under their feet again.

"So we just… need to find the demon at the center of this and kill it?" Nathaniel asked, wary but surprisingly composed all things considered. "Or find The First?"

"There's usually a trick to it," Anders said. "Something like… the exit's through a small hole and you need to turn into a mouse to escape. Or you have to find the demon and convince them that sending you home is _their_ idea."

"Or we can just go join that mob over there," Cait pointed toward a gathering of spirit villagers, torches and pitchforks at the ready. "The demon's probably keeping them there too."

They walked through the town of Blackmarsh-That-Was, the buildings tall and clean, chickens and townsfolk alike ignoring their passage. No children, that was weird. Down an alley, Cait saw a man being dragged off by unseen hands; that was weirder.

And weirdest of all, the one inciting the mob was a Fade spirit.

That's what he had to be. Cait remembered Wynne's tales of the spirit of Faith that had saved her life and of other spirits that represented positive traits - charity, valor, compassion. As this spirit clearly was not human and also didn't resemble any demon she'd ever met, she felt comfortable with the assumption.

She hoped he was what he appeared to be, but… well, worst case scenario they were still trapped here. Best case, they made a new friend and they all got out of here alive. She'd take her chances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone needs a friend like Anders to figuratively lock you in a closet until you confess your feelings. his and Cait's relationship has been a delightful surprise while writing this.


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they left the Blackmarsh, less gloomy and haunted but still mud and swamp and _mud_ , Cait had plenty of time to reminisce on all the ways she hated being right.

As they left the Blackmarsh, less gloomy and haunted but still mud and swamp and _mud_ , Cait had plenty of time to reminisce on all the ways she hated being right.

She bit her tongue against the complaints and curses that still stewed in her mind, though. There was no use in angering their new companion, and Cait didn't know how he'd react to her hurling insults at his home.

Cathain was proud of the diversity of those she'd traveled with since she'd become a Warden, the different points of view she had gotten the chance to understand. Mages and templars, dwarves and elves, qunari and golems, and at least two men who had actively tried to kill her and whom she now counted among her most staunch supporters.

Justice… was something new. To put it lightly.

Kristoff had probably been a handsome man in life, but he'd clearly been dead a few days in bad conditions when Justice had been forced into his body. Now, there was no way to deny or pretend he was anything other than a walking corpse. His face was sunken, nearly skeletal - especially around his nose and jaw - and he looked too delicate to be able to move under the weight of his armor. His clouded eyes glowed faintly blue from the strength of the spirit within. Cait had to suppress a shudder whenever he looked her way; she had the distinct feeling that he could see into her soul and was taking her measure.

But Kristoff had been one of hers, or would have been, and she could feel him buzzing in her blood as clear as Nate or Oghren. So she had accepted Justice's offer to help, and now one of her Wardens was a spirit. An actual blighted Spirit of Justice. Wonders never cease.

With the death of the Baroness, they'd cleared the miasma from the marsh. The air was lighter, the sun finally penetrating the canopy. Conversation flowed easily again, and Cait's head finally started to clear.

"Is this what it's always like for you?" Nathaniel asked in something akin to awe. "Can you go _anywhere_ without saving cursed people and fighting ghost dragons?"

Oghren cackled, answering before Cait had a chance, "I could tell you some stories. The Commander attracts trouble like I attract _the ladies_ , heh heh."

"So you must live a very boring life," Anders muttered dryly. 

Cathain bit her lip to stop from laughing. "He's literally been married _twice_."

"Are you serious? _Him_?"

All she could do was nod, silent giggles shaking her shoulders.

Anders shook his head. "I need to rethink my whole life now."

Oghren didn't hear them, though. He was in storytelling mode, waving his arms wildly as he spoke. "What do you want to hear about? When she found the actual physical remains of the Chantry prophet and had to fight a high dragon and the cult that worshiped it?"

"That dragon almost killed me."

"When she found a Paragon in the Deep Roads from the time of the First Blight?"

"I was just trying to find _your wife_."

"When she cured a werewolf curse?"

"Technically, the werewolves cured themselves. I just mediated."

"When she won a duel with Ferelden's greatest general and single-handedly ended a civil war?"

"It was hardly 'single-handed'."

"Cait!" Anders laughed. "Andraste's flaming knickers, just take the blasted compliment!"

Cait shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth, stopping any more denials from pouring forth. "Maybe I do attract trouble. Explains how I got stuck with you lot."

"I always said life would never be dull with you around," Nathaniel said fondly. "If only I'd known how right I was."

Anders threw an arm over her shoulders. "I bet Denerim is _insufferable_. Is that why you moved out to, what did Wade call it - 'Turnip Keep'?"

Cait leaned against him, thankful for once at his attempted levity. "Ugh. It's like everyone in that city forgot my name the moment the archdemon died. _I_ didn't even kill the blighted archdemon."

"Tell you what," Anders said with a poor excuse for a wink, "next time you have to go to Denerim, I'll go with you! Everyone will be too busy scowling at the mage to even notice the Hero of Ferelden!"

Cait pulled away from him so she could look up at him, searching his face to see if he was joking. He wasn't. "Anders, that may be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Does that mean I get to call you Caitie yet?"

She laughed, feeling better than she had in days. "Don't push your luck."

\-------

"Do you… eat?" Cait cringed at the way it sounded, but could think of no more polite way to phrase it.

If Justice was offended, he didn't look it. Or maybe he just hadn't figured out facial expressions yet. "I require neither sleep nor sustenance. I will keep watch over your camp through the night."

It was tempting, the idea of a full night's sleep, but… "I'd like someone to take watch with you. We were ambushed on the road less than four days ago, I'd like an extra pair of eyes on the trees."

"You do not trust me." He said it plainly, again not offended, just observing.

"I don't _know_ you," Cait corrected, "though I don't think you mean us harm. But regardless, I'm not lying to you. We lost most of a day's travel because I got injured. I don't want to be caught unaware."

Justice stared at her, unblinking. She fought the urge to look away. "Very well," he stated, and then he didn't acknowledge her anymore.

“I'm going to go gather firewood." Cathain stepped into the forest before anyone else tried to talk to her.

She wasn’t that lucky. She was barely into the deep woods when she felt Nathaniel join her. She couldn’t hear him, but she knew he was there. “I hope you don’t think you’re being subtle,” she said lightly.

“We need to talk,” he growled, right behind her.

“I know we do.” She didn’t turn around, wading further into the underbrush. “And we will, after dinner. Right now we have work to do.”

“Caitie, please, will you just _stop_.” He grabbed her wrist and dragged her to a halt.

Cait whipped around toward him and stared at that point of contact. She tested his grip, but it held firm. He wasn’t hurting her, but she’d have to hurt _him_ to break free. She looked up at him, then back at his gentle but implacable hold on her arm. She tried reaching for calm, but all she found was anger. “Let me go, Nathaniel,” she warned, voice low.

He stepped closer, trying to intimidate her with his size alone. “Did you know you only call me Nathaniel when you’re mad at me?”

“Did you know that the last time a man grabbed me like that I broke his nose? Let. Me. _Go_.” She took a step toward him, crowding him even though she was several inches shorter than he was. She met his eyes, jaw set in a clear challenge.

Nate blinked first. He released her wrist and she rubbed at it, even though he hadn’t left any mark at all. He backed up a step. “You are the most stubborn, _infuriating_ woman I’ve ever met.”

“So I’ve been told,” Cait said bitterly. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them at her sides until they stopped. “I know what I am, Nate. I don’t apologize for it. There was a time when you found that attractive.”

“Maker help me, I _still do_ ,” he snarled. Her eyes widened at that confession, but he didn’t give her time to think about it. “It isn’t like you to run away like this, Caitie.”

“How would you know what I’m like?” She hissed and stepped forward, getting in his face again. “What makes you think I’m the same person I was when you left? That either of us are?”

Nathaniel grabbed her by the shoulders. He looked like he wanted to shake her until some sense fell out, but he didn’t. Softly, he said, “I don’t expect you to be. I just want a chance to find out for myself.”

Her anger faded. Without it, she felt cold. Tired. “And what if you don’t like what you find?” 

“Is that what you’re scared of? Caitie, there’s no way you could change so much that I wouldn’t still--” he cut himself off abruptly, but Cait knew how that sentence ended and it hit her like a blow to the chest. “I’d like us to be friends again. I thought we were.”

“We are,” she whispered. It didn’t feel sufficient. She thought back to their talk not even a week ago when they left the Vigil, and added, “You have never been _‘just’_ anything.”

His smile was a sweet and beautiful thing. “Neither have you.” Moving slowly, giving her plenty of time to refuse him, he lifted his hand to touch her face. She leaned into it.

Her eyes fluttered shut against the intensity of his pale eyes and her whirring thoughts. “Do you ever wish I were something… else? Softer? Less aggressive, less angry?”

“Does this have something to do with that talk we had over the fire?” Nathaniel asked quietly. Cait could feel his breath on her skin as he spoke.

“Yes. And you didn’t answer my question.” This felt familiar, this closeness, like sneaking away from their families to have a few moments they didn't have to pretend. He was taller, broader, older than he had been then, but his eyes were the same. So was the way he looked at her.

His hand brushed over her cheek and into her hair, cupping the back of her head and gently coaxing her to look at him again. “Never. If you were, you wouldn’t be you. If I had the choice of every man and woman in Thedas, I would still pick you every time.”

Cait touched his face, tracing the stubble on his jaw; he was going to have a full beard by the time they made it back to the Vigil at this rate. “I have obligations.”

“I know.”

“Things I have to take care of before I can even consider any kind of personal commitments.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to lose you again,” Cait whispered, and her voice broke. There it was. The truth under all her excuses, finally out in the open.

“Shhhh, I know.” Nate traced his thumb over her bottom lip. “I’m here. We’ll figure the rest out as we go.”

She grabbed onto the front of his armor to drag him down to her level and pressed her lips to his.

She hadn’t meant for it to be anything more than that, but his hand clenched in her hair and tilted her head back _just so_. She made a tiny, hungry noise in the back of her throat and he surged forward, pulling her flush against him, and any hesitations Cait still harbored flew right out the window.

They kissed like they'd waited eight years for it. Every ounce of loneliness and longing and pain from nearly a decade apart, all the frustration and anger from the last month poured from them and into each other in a desperate and almost violent meeting of lips and tongues and bodies.

Too soon, they had to break apart to breathe. Cait finally took the opportunity to run her hands along those glorious shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and shift under her touch. Nathaniel had one hand splayed across her hip and the other still tangled in her hair and his eyes were dark and warm. Cait would burn the whole blighted world to ash if he asked it of her, if it meant he'd keep looking at her like that.

He pressed his forehead to hers and she took several deep, calming breaths. She wanted to kiss him again, but was much too wound up and emotional for that to lead anywhere except her tent. Cait had a lot of things she wanted to say to him; she wished she knew where to start.

When she did finally speak, it wasn’t to Nate. “Enjoying the show?”

"We were just wondering if you'd be back with that firewood before sunrise," Anders said casually. He appeared from around a tree about ten feet away and leaned against it. "How did you know I was there?"

"I can literally feel you _in my blood_. I couldn't ignore you, no matter how much I wanted to. Give it another month, maybe two, you'll feel it too." As she spoke, she pried herself reluctantly away from Nathaniel. He let her go, but didn't let her go far.

"That is a very interesting fact and also a clever way to change the subject," Anders' grin was sharp and lethal.

She sighed. "I'll be right there with your blighted firewood, okay?"

"I'll head back to camp with Anders. I doubt we'd get anything done otherwise," Nathaniel said. Before she could react, he turned to her, tipped her chin up, and kissed her, quickly but _very_ thoroughly. Then he walked away before she could find anything to say in response.

Anders rolled his eyes in a way that reminded her abruptly of Fergus, an affectionately annoyed, brotherly expression. "Right, well, I'm going back to camp. You might want to fix your hair or something." He waved and left.

Cait didn't think they needed firewood. The heat from her flushed face would be enough to keep them all warm tonight.

\-------

Justice was perhaps an even worse conversationalist than Cait had anticipated. He answered any questions asked of him without rancor but also with as few words as possible. He offered no questions in return except those he deemed necessary, about maintaining the campfire or what he should be keeping watch for while the others were sleeping.

They were barely an hour into first watch and she could already tell it would be a long night. 

She watched him from across the fire. He was unnaturally still, unblinking, no shifting or breathing or any of the other tiny movements people made without noticing. And when he did move, it was never all at once. She watched him watch a bird bouncing in the trees above them, and Justice moved only his head to track its movement, the rest of him still as the grave.

When the bird moved past him to the point that his head couldn't turn farther, he abandoned his pursuit and turned back to the fire. His clouded, glowing eyes met hers.

"This must be very strange for you," she said softly.

He studied her in silence, so long that she thought he wasn't going to answer, before saying hesitantly "…It is. In the Fade, the world changes around you constantly. But not here. I can close my eyes and know that when I open them again, things will be as they were."

Justice closed his eyes then, and Cait felt as if hers were just opened. His silence wasn't due to coldness as she'd first thought; he was simply overwhelmed, absorbing and observing everything. He was listening to every word they said to pick up its nuance. He was watching the birds in the trees and the flowers along the road, seeing colors he'd never seen before.

A wistful look passed over his face, and his lips curled up in the first smile she'd ever seen from him. "Is that the wind? It feels good on my face."

"When we get back to the Keep, I'll take you up on the roof to watch the sunset," Cait said, her voice rough with emotion. "Colors like you wouldn't believe."

He looked at her, staring again with those soul-piercing eyes. "I would like that. Thank you."

The silence felt more comfortable when it settled again. Justice turned back to the forest, watching the leaves rustle in the breeze, the little family of deer that walked close to their camp, the pop and spark of the campfire. Cait let her eyes wander as well, trying to look at the world through fresh eyes, like she was seeing it for the first time.

"You have a question for me." Justice said eventually. Cait didn't know how long had passed in silence. "Ask."

"What kind of man was Kristoff?" It felt rude to ask, but she had to. "He was supposed to be one of mine. I was supposed to be responsible for him. I feel guilty that he died because I wasn't here."

Cait bit her lip to stop more words from pouring forth. It was more than she'd intended to say, but she meant it. What happened to Kristoff, to the Wardens at the Vigil before it had been hers, would not happen again.

"You care about the people under your command."

She shrugged. "They're my family. We protect each other, take care of each other. And I failed at that with Kristoff. Now I just want to make sure he's remembered. It's the least I can do."

Justice smiled at her, a real smile. It was more charming than she'd have expected from a corpse. "I think I understand." The smile disappeared all at once, as if it had never been there. "Kristoff was… very proud of his position as a Grey Warden. He looked forward to serving under you. He hoped to have the opportunity to help people. That's why he went to the Blackmarsh. He recognized the magic involved and thought he could help."

"He probably could have, if The First hadn't got to him. No one expected talking darkspawn," Cait mused.

Justice ignored her interruption. "He loved his wife. Her name is Aura. I do not have much basis of comparison, but I think Kristoff was a good man. I... mourn his loss." 

He said the last as if surprised by his own words. After a moment, he added, "What of you, Commander? Are you a good man?"

_Bryce Cousland's little spitfire, all grown up and still playing the man_ , a nasty, familiar voice whispered in her mind. Cait ignored it and didn't bother to correct Justice about her gender. "I try to be. I believe everyone makes good choices and bad ones. I just try to make more good than bad. It's the best any of us can do."

Justice held a hand out toward her, hesitant and awkward. "I think if I am to be trapped in your realm, I am glad it is you I travel with."

Cait clasped his hand. It felt like shaking two hands at once. One was cold, clammy, very clearly and disturbingly the hand of a corpse; the other was firm and almost hot enough to burn, the energy of the spirit within. "I hope I prove worthy of the trust you've put in me, Justice."

"The fact that you wish to prove yourself at all means that you already have."

\-------

"Whaddya think he meant?" Oghren asked suddenly. It was early afternoon on the brightest day Blackmarsh had probably seen in decades. He'd been silent since the Fade incident the day before, walking at the middle of the group with his eyes on the ground.

"Welcome back, Oghren!" Anders exclaimed. "I was starting to think you'd gotten stuck in the Fade after all!"

"Go kiss a nug."

"What did who mean, Oghren?" Nathaniel said with the patience of a man with two hot-headed younger siblings.

"That… darkspawn guy. The First. He said 'The Mother' had sent him to stop _you_ ," at this he pointed at Cait, "from aiding in 'his' plans. Whose plans?"

That jogged something in Cait's memory. "The one we met at the Vigil said something like that too. That I had arrived 'just as he foretold.'"

"So whaddya think he meant?"

"Nothing good," Cait muttered. She picked at a loose thread on one of her gloves distractedly, trying to think.

"It means there's something out there more dangerous than these intelligent darkspawn," Nathaniel said darkly. "Maybe the source of them."

"Maybe two sources? Whoever 'he' is on one side, and this Mother on the other?" Anders spoke with his hands as much as his words, miming two angry hand puppet darkspawn that crashed into each other and exploded.

"And Grey Wardens in the middle." Cait crossed her arms over her chest to keep from unraveling her gloves entirely. "At least it seems to be localized. No talking darkspawn or creepy grub things at Soldier's Peak or in Denerim."

"Are those the only other places that have Wardens?" Anders asked. He wasn't normally interested in the inner working of the Grey Wardens, but he looked very curious now as he moved to walk next to Cait.

"In Ferelden, yes." She counted on her fingers as she spoke. "Alistair is still a Warden, no matter how much he hates me or says he quit the order when he married Anora. Loghain and a few visiting Orlesian Wardens are at Soldier's Peak, trying to help the Drydens turn it into something useful. We're the only _active_ Grey Wardens in Ferelden right now."

"That's... kind of depressing actually."

Cathain laughed. "I find it refreshing. Five whole Wardens in Amaranthine? Another four or five within a week's travel if we need them? It's an embarrassment of riches."

"I feel like that explains a lot about why you are the way you are," Anders gave her what was starting to be a familiar brotherly grin.

Cait put her hands on her hips, pretending to be offended. "And just what _way_ am I?"

"Beautiful and charming," he teased. "A picture of courtly grace. Certainly not the kind of woman more likely to punch you than smile at you."

"I think you just have that effect on women, Anders," Nathaniel muttered.

Cathain laughed along, but in her head she was already drafting all the letters she needed to write. How was she supposed to say 'darkspawn civil war' and then convince Anora and the First Warden both to not send an army to Amaranthine?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what's the opposite of a slow burn? because I guess that's what we can expect from Cait and Nate


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were welcomed back to Vigil's Keep by sheer pandemonium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the rating increase, friends
> 
> if sexual situations make you uncomfortable stop reading after the letter from Zevran, next chapter will continue with less porn and more plot <3

They were welcomed back to Vigil's Keep by sheer pandemonium.

The first person they saw was Aura, Kristoff's wife, which went about as well as Cait expected. The second person was the Private that was in charge of running messages, presenting her with a large stack of letters and a nervous smile; Cait felt bad that she couldn't remember the girl's name, as often as they saw each other.

The third was Varel. He looked more tense than she'd ever seen him - he had, in fact, looked more relaxed with a darkspawn sword to his throat. He walked briskly up to her and said in a voice so low she could barely hear it, "The banns are here. They have a couple matters they want to discuss. I told them you were away on business, but Esmerelle and Liza insisted. They've been here two days now."

" _Shit_ ," Cait muttered. "Can you stall them long enough for me to change clothes?"

"I'll try, your grace," Varel said, then walked away. The fact that he was using honorifics was a bad sign.

"Nate, can I have a word?" Cait took his arm and led him toward the kitchen entrance to the keep. They'd probably be able to avoid the nobles that way. Probably.

"Need me to set someone on fire, Cait?" Anders called as she walked away.

"Ask me again in an hour," she yelled back, and then they were around the corner.

"Caitie, what's going on?" Nathaniel asked as she hurried him down the halls.

"The banns are demanding I hold court. It seems they've forgotten exactly who they're dealing with." It sounded cocky, but she didn't care. She was no dumb soldier, naive to the workings of the court. She was the Seawolf's daughter. It's time these leeches remembered that. "Will you come with me? You know Amaranthine's politics better than I do."

He looked surprised that she would ask, but recovered quickly. "Of course I will, but what else is this about?"

Damn his keen eyes. "I'll explain in more detail later, but… it's been brought to my attention that some of them are plotting to have me assassinated." She pulled him into his bedroom and closed the door, stopping his protests before he could voice them. "I think I know who it is, but I can't prove it, and until I can I need eyes in the corners anytime the nobility visits."

She could see all the questions churning in his eyes, but all he said was "What do you need me to do?"

Cait slumped with relief. "Wear something nice, but bring your bow. Sit beside me, give me advise, and back my decisions. Easy enough, right?"

Nathaniel smiled sourly. "I think we were safer with the darkspawn."

"At least they were honest about wanting us dead." She kissed him quickly, unable to resist the urge. "Meet me in the main hall as soon as you can."

Then she ducked out of his room and jogged silently to hers, to put on what Mother always called her 'silk armor.'

\-------

Cait stepped out into the main hall less than ten minutes later, hair brushed and in a simple braided bun. She wore a dark grey dress Leliana had bought for her. It was the same color as her eyes, but more importantly had a thin, flexible blade hidden in a sheath sewn into the corset in case she needed it.

Nathaniel waited for her by the entrance in a pale blue shirt. It had a plunging neckline and rather billowy sleeves, and the amusement in his eyes told her exactly why he'd picked it. He bowed to her and offered his arm, then led her into battle.

There were nearly a dozen nobles assembled, most of them familiar faces ranging from bored to openly hostile. She saw Anders and Oghren in one corner; they waved exuberantly when they saw her.

"Presenting Arlessa Cathain Cousland, Commander of the Grey," Varel announced, "and her advisor, Lord Nathaniel Howe of Amaranthine."

_That_ got some scandalized whispers from those assembled. Cait tried not to look smug. She took a seat on the simple, smooth wood throne and Nate and Varel took up positions at either side.

Most of the business was fairly mundane. Too many soldiers patrolling my lands, not enough soldiers patrolling my lands, petty thievery, desertion, all things that the seneschal could have handled without her there.

At the last, Lady Liza Packton of Teryn's Down stepped forward and Cait saw a gleam in Bann Esmerelle's eye where she stood, silent and watching, at the back of the room. This was what the show was truly about then.

"Arl Rendon Howe made certain promises to me," Liza simpered. "I was given the right to the incomes of the southern bridge."

A man stepped up next to her, arms crossed defensively. With no attempt to hide his hostility, he said "And what part did you take in Howe's conspiracies, eh, Liza?"

"That was my question as well," Nathaniel muttered in her ear.

"I am Ser Derren," the man challenging Liza said with a stiff bow, "it's my land she seeks."

Once he said his name, Cait recognized him. He'd been a vocal supporter of her even as far back as the Landsmeet. He was perhaps the only one of the whole lot she could trust.

Liza and Derren threw barbs back and forth for a while. Cait started counting how many times Rendon Howe's name came from Liza's mouth. Really, she wasn't even subtle.

"Let me see the papers, Lady Liza," she interrupted after the argument started to circle back on itself.

Liza brought the papers forward. She hovered after Cait had taken them, ignoring her pointed glare, and only stepped back down the dias when Nathaniel took a warning step forward.

He leaned over her shoulder to inspect the papers with her. "Unfortunately, they look legitimate," he whispered. "But taking income earned on someone else's land would not stand up against close inspection by a higher court. I say the validity of this claim ended when Father died."

Cathain nodded. "The land belongs to Ser Derren, so too do the incomes earned within them."

Liza turned red. "But, my lady, Arl Howe--"

"My father was a murderer," Nathaniel said coldly. "He dragged my family name through the mud and would have dragged you all down with him if he could. I would be careful not to throw his name around so freely, my lady."

Cait stared at him. It was the first time she'd actually heard him acknowledge it before. "You all remember Nathaniel Howe, Rendon's oldest son," she said to the court. She didn't really care if they remembered him or not.

"He should be sitting where you are!" A voice yelled from the back. She couldn't see who it was, but it sounded very familiar.

"Yes. He should." Cait said plainly, finding Esmerelle in the crowd. "But he isn't, so you will suffer me instead."

"I guess we will," said Esmerelle, trying to match Cait's stare with her own and failing. "Where did a Grey Warden learn to hold court, I wonder."

"At my father's side. In Highever. I didn’t realize you have such a short memory, my lady."

She saw a flash of something in Esmerelle's eyes, disdain but also a bit of fear, and then the bann turned and walked out.

"Does anyone else have any concerns to bring before the court?" She was met with silence. "Then court is adjourned."

She kept her back straight as everyone exited the room. As soon as the door closed and all that remained were friendly faces, Cait hunched in the chair and let out a long sigh. "Maker's blood, that was awful. Enlightening, but awful. Varel, make sure a guard is watching Esmerelle and Liza every second that they are in the Vigil. They're as likely to poison the wine as they are to steal the silverware."

"As you say, your grace," Varel said quietly. That meant he'd already done so. Clever man. She was glad he was on her side.

Cait stood up and stepped down from the dais as gracefully as possible. Now that everyone was gone, she felt like her legs had turned to jelly. She hadn’t realized how stressed she was. "If that will be all, I think there's a bath somewhere in this place with my name on it."

\-------

After a long and amazing hot bath, Cait put on a pair of comfortable breeches and a clean tunic and climbed up into her tree.

The huge ash tree had been ancient even when she was little. It took up most of a corner of the courtyard with its large, reaching branches and thick canopy. She'd been climbing it as long as she could remember. She sat on her favorite branch, thick and nearly horizontal and about two-thirds of the way up; she had carved her initials into it when she was eleven, and best of all she was completely invisible from the ground unless you knew exactly where to look.

"I think they've all left, you don't need to hide." Nathaniel called from the ground, finding her unerringly behind the shifting leaves. He was still wearing that damned shirt. "Do you want me to come up? Or do you plan to fall on me again?"

"One time," she said. "I fall out of a tree one time, _fifteen years ago_ , and still you never let me live it down."

"You broke two of my ribs. And your arm," he said as he started to climb. He was nearly as familiar with the tree as she was - though Delilah had told her once that Nate never climbed it unless Cait 'was around to impress' - and before she knew it, he sat on the limb across from her.

"The healers put us back together just fine. Besides, it's not like I _meant_ to fall on you." It was an old argument, comforting in its familiarity.

He chuckled. "Why are you in a tree today, Caitie?"

"I missed it," she said plainly. "I was thinking about touring the grounds a bit, for nostalgia's sake. Climb my tree, break into that cellar that Adria kept adding locks to but could never keep us out of, and then after dinner I'd sneak into your room for a little while."

Nathaniel leaned his back against the ash's trunk, trying to arrange himself comfortably. "Stay a few hours, sneak out before dawn?"

Cait grinned, but froze as a sudden realization hit her. "I… wouldn't have to. We don't have to hide anymore." She could spend a whole night with him, she thought giddily. Sleep in the same bed and wake up together. It wasn't a possibility she'd ever considered before.

Neither had he, if the awed look on his face was any indication.

Cathain cleared her throat. She had to change the subject; hidden though they were, the tree was still in a very public place. This wasn't the right place for that conversation, no matter how much they needed to have it. "Thank you, for what you said. About your father. I know how hard that must have been for you."

"It was the truth," he muttered to the whispering leaves around them instead of looking at her. "I don't know what happened to make him become so heartless, but I won't deny anymore that he was. He was a monster. Maybe he always was and I just didn't want to see it."

Cait steadied her footing on the branches below her before leaning enough to press a quick kiss to his cheek. "Still. Thank you."

She settled back onto her branch, letting her legs dangle over the void. The ground looked like it was miles away; if she fell from this height, she doubted she'd walk away with only a broken arm. It felt like flying. It felt like _freedom_.

"We should go back," she said reluctantly. "I have a stack of letters I still need to wade through."

"Do you want help?"

Cait opened her mouth to turn him down, but stopped and thought about it. "Yes, actually. That would be great."

They climbed out of the tree almost as gracefully as they'd gone up it. No one fell on anyone else. No one in the courtyard even acknowledged them; they must be getting used to Cait's brand of strangeness.

"Should I meet you after dinner, then?" Nathaniel asked with a smile she couldn't quite read.

"You can sneak into my room for a change," she laughed. "Do you even know where it is?"

"I think I can find it," he said softly.

He looked so earnest and affectionate, standing there in his ridiculous sexy shirt with leaves in his hair. She felt poised on the precipice of something big, something new, something sweet and fragile as candy floss.

Cait did what she did best and barreled through it.

She stepped close to him, past the invisible line of 'polite distance' they'd been maintaining. She laid her hand on his chest over that tantalizing sliver of bare skin, dark hair soft under her fingers. "One of these days, you're going to have to take me on a real date, you know."

"Caitie," he growled, "I just took you to _the Fade_. What else do you want from me, woman?"

\-------

Cait sat on her bed, legs crossed under her and stared at the stacks of letters. "I was only gone a week! How could people possibly need this much from me in a week?"

"Welcome to governance," Nathaniel said. He sat in a chair next to the bed in a show of unnecessary chivalry.

Cait sighed and picked up the first letter, addressed simply to 'Cathain' from 'Nightingale.'

_Dearest Cathain,_

_I hope things are well for you in Amaranthine and you are not working too hard. Let others help you. It will not hurt so much as you think, no?_

_I have grown bored with life in Denerim. Soft beds and warm meals are good, but after so long on the road I have grown restless. Plus, it is not the same without you here. No one else will get into trouble with me like you do._

_I am visiting a mutual friend of ours at Soldier's Peak, trying to translate Grumpy Ferelden into something that the Orlesian Wardens will accept. I am starting to think that our friend wants to start another war. I think he needs time away, and so I have convinced him to come visit you._

_I have phrased it as a mission to help you, of course. You are doing very important work against the darkspawn, no? Work that could use a few more pairs of hands, perhaps of a Chantry sister and a grumpy general?_

_Of course you do. I will not take no for an answer. We will see you soon. Stay safe until then._

_Yours,_   
_Nightingale_

Cait smiled down at the letter. Leliana wouldn't write to her until they were already on the way; she understood Cait too well in that regard. She was not a woman who liked to admit when she needed help, so her friend just forced help upon her without permission. She would have been angry about it, but she had been planning to invite Loghain up anyways, and the fact of the matter was… she missed her friends.

She set the letter to the side. "Looks like we'll have company soon. A few old friends coming to visit."

"Actual friends, or political friends?" Nate asked, still scanning his own letter.

"Actual. And bored ones, too, so maybe we can put them to work when they get here."

"Good." He waved his letter at her before balling it up and throwing it towards the wastepaper basket. "A letter from a bann demanding compensation for damages done to his lands by darkspawn, but he's not one of your vassals and his land is far north of those ravaged by the Blight anyway. You can ignore it."

There turned out to be a lot of those. Everyone who lost so much as a blade of grass to the Blight seemed to hold her personally responsible. Cait wondered how many of these letters she'd been getting at the palace in Denerim that were thrown out by Leliana or Zevran before they ever made it to her.

They weren't all like that, though. Some were trade offers, which they set aside to take to Mistress Woolsey. Some were progress or expense reports about repairs to the Vigil and her surrounding lands. One was a legitimate cry for help, a man whose daughter had been kidnapped and was asking if they could spare a few soldiers to get her back. They both agreed they would leave at first light to take care of that personally.

The last missive had a seal that Cait had never seen before, a crow with a dagger in its heart, but she knew immediately who it must belong to. It contained two letters. She picked up the first and in very familiar looping handwriting it said:

_Dear Nathaniel,_

_What a joy to hear that you're alive!_

Cait stopped reading immediately and passed the letter over. "It's for you."

She collapsed to the bed as soon as he took it, almost dizzy with relief. Delilah was alive.

She picked up the other letter; it was, as she'd expected, full of Zevran's tiny, jagged writing.

_My friend,_

_As I'm sure comes as no surprise, I have found your Delilah Howe. She lives in Amaranthine with her husband, a merchant baker of decent means. I have watched them for some time, and he is an honest, humble man who clearly loves his wife. She is safe and happy and was far out of reach of her father._

_She spotted me on my third day. Threw a potted plant at my head. I see why you are friends._

_She wants to see you, and your Nathaniel of course. She says she will barge into the keep if you don't come to Amaranthine soon. I do not think I would recommend keeping her waiting._

_I will stay here a few more days before making my way back to your keep. There are disturbing rumors of a plot to assassinate you. If there is truth to them, I will root it out and present it upon my return. Or, perhaps, when you come to the city. You do take me to the nicest places, my dear Warden._

_Do be careful, my friend. The Crows may not take contracts on you, but a dagger in the back does not much care who wields it._

_Z_

"She's alive," Nathaniel whispered, staring at the letter in his hands. "My sister is alive. She wants me to come see her."

He threw himself at Cait, pulling her into a tight hug and burying his face in her shoulder. "I can't believe you found her. You ridiculous, glorious, amazing woman."

She felt her face redden, embarrassed and pleased in equal measure, but she wrapped her arms around him anyway. "She's only in Amaranthine. You'd have found her on your own eventually."

"Thank you, Caitie," he murmured as if she hadn't spoken, "I will find a way to return the favor."

At that, she pushed him away so she could see him. She caressed his face, watching the joy in his eyes turn into something warmer, deeper. "Hey, I didn't do this so you'd owe me. She's family. _You're_ family. Either of you would have done the same for me."

She shouldn't have been surprised when he kissed her, but she was. 

In all the years they'd been doing this - whatever, exactly, _this_ was - he had very rarely been the one to initiate. Not just with her, but with anyone. A hug, a handshake, any point of physical contact, Nate would never start it, never ask for it; Cait was pretty sure it was another on the long list of things she hated Rendon Howe for. She had been the one to kiss him first, under the warm glow of colorful lanterns at the Harvest Festival when she was thirteen. She had just cut her hair and Fergus and Thomas were teasing her about it. Nate had told her he thought she looked pretty with short hair. So she kissed him. Easy as that.

Even though everything else had gotten so complicated, this part was still easy. She let him take the lead this time, opening for him eagerly as he shifted to deepen the kiss, letting him push her down to the mattress to the sound of a half dozen pieces of parchment hitting the floor. She mapped every inch of him that she could reach, trailing her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, down the planes of his back, memorizing all the ways he felt different and all the things that felt the same.

Then she slipped her hands under the hem of his ludicrous poet shirt and over the hard muscle and smooth skin and soft hair on his chest and stomach. He groaned, a hungry and desperate sound Cait felt all the way to her soul, and he broke the kiss.

"I thought you wanted to take it slow," Nathaniel growled, voice even deeper than normal and full of promise.

"You have been flaunting this at me _all day_. I'm only human, Nate." She paused her caresses and asked, just to be sure, "Am I overstepping?"

"No," he said, then added quietly, "I want you to touch me."

Cait had to close her eyes against her visceral reaction to those simple words. She felt them settle as a pool of warmth in her lower belly.

"Caitie," Nate said in that same quiet voice, a simple, gentle command, "look at me."

She did. She couldn't have denied that voice much of anything.

He held her gaze relentlessly as he pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth motion, and then he was kneeling above her, half-naked and gorgeous. Last time she'd seen him like this, he had been 20, barely grown, lanky as a willow switch and hardly more than skin and bones. Now… eight years of constant training had filled him out and covered him in wiry, whipcord muscle.

She drank him in, raking her eyes over the dense muscle, the width of his shoulders, the pale lines of old scars, the dark hair across his pecs and the trail of it down his abdomen. "Maker's breath, Nathaniel," she breathed, "you are beautiful."

Everything Nathaniel felt was laid bare in his eyes, dark with need but also shining with love. It wasn't a word they'd ever said out loud to each other. Love was permanent and they always knew what they had was destined to be temporary, but Cait let herself think it. Let herself feel it.

"I'm afraid I don't paint quite so lovely a picture," she said, but she still found his hand and brought it to the hem of her tunic. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second before pulling it up and over her head.

Cait had never been the kind of woman people called soft, not in body or temperament, but the Blight had removed what traces there had been. She was all flat planes and sharp angles and a complex, overlapping tapestry of scar tissue.

She refused to be self-conscious about it. This body had kept her alive; it didn't need to be pretty.

She watched Nathaniel study her much like she'd done to him. His eyes moved slowly down her body, mapping and memorizing every scar. She had enough time to regret not putting on a breast band, feeling much more exposed under his intense gaze than she would have without that thin strip of cloth.

When he still hadn't said anything after a few minutes, Cait whispered, "You can ask about them. I don't mind."

He touched his thumb to the round, puckered scar just under her left collarbone. "Ostagar," she breathed. "Darkspawn arrow." Anything else she was going to say was lost in a hiss as he leaned down and brushed his lips across that scar.

"Nate," she said, and she wasn't sure if she was warning or begging.

"Am I overstepping?"

"No." She was already shaking and he'd barely even done anything. "I want you to touch me. Please, Nate."

His fingers brushed feather-light along her right side, following four ragged parallel scars. She arched into it, making a sound dangerously close to a whimper. He watched her, still and maddeningly patient. Waiting for an answer, Cait realized; she'd already forgotten the game.

"Werewolf. Brecilian Forest."

When his tongue touched her skin, tracing along the path claws had carved into her, she couldn't bite back a strangled cry.

Nathaniel continued like that over every inch of her bared skin. The perfect ring of tooth marks on her right wrist, from a deepstalker. The ugly knotted scar above her left elbow, from the Landsmeet. The swirling, complex burn above her navel from a blood mage. The small, barely noticeable line right beneath it, where his father had stabbed her.

By the time he made it to the long, thin cut above her hip from her first meeting with Zevran, Cait was panting, clutching desperately at his arms, his shoulders, his hair, anything to try and pull him closer, to get more than light, gentle caresses.

If he was affected at all, he didn't show it. His eyes were dark and intense, but his hands and lips were steady and sure and _not enough_.

"Nate, _please_ ," she whined again, but he didn't even acknowledge it.

What he did do was look up at her from where he still hovered near her hip and asked, "Is that all of them?" Smug should not have been such a good look for him.

She considered lying, but the last scar too big for her to easily hide, no matter how much she wanted to get moving already. "Just one, but you don't want--"

"What's it from?"

"The archdemon."

Nate somehow managed to look even more intense. "Show me."

She moved slowly, limbs rubbery and trembling from his very thorough explorations, and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him. She'd never seen the scar she'd received from the archdemon. She'd seen Loghain's, which she was told was similar, and she'd seen sketches of it courtesy of Zevran, but it was hard to angle a mirror to see it for herself.

It followed almost the entire length of her spine, an inch wide and still looking barely healed even after six months. It looked like someone had laid a hot iron against her back or something had burned its way out of her from the inside. She was told it was from the death of the archdemon, but she hadn't been conscious to see it.

She jumped when he first touched it, tentative for the first time. He followed the line of it all the way down, then all the way back up. She shivered at the sensation, gripping the edge of the bed hard enough that the mattress creaked in protest.

"How did you survive that?" Nathaniel asked, lips at her ear and fingers trailing back down her spine again.

"A stubborn witch, a very powerful healer, and a lot of luck," she murmured. Now was definitely not the time for that story. "How are you still so _calm_?"

He took her hand in whichever of his wasn't still trailing fire up her back and pressed it to the front of his breeches. She could feel the hot, hard length of him straining against the cloth. "I have a very good poker face," he growled. She gave him a little squeeze and he groaned, burying his face in her hair.

"Please, Nate," she begged once more. She continued to stroke him through his clothes until he pulled her hand roughly away.

"You have waited eight years," he murmured against her skin. She tilted her head to give him better access to her neck. "You can't wait a little longer?"

"The last eight years I wasn't being touched like this." Cait gasped as he found a particularly sensitive spot on her throat. "I think I'm being _remarkably_ patient, considering the circumstances."

He froze, whole body going abruptly still. "Not at all?"

It took her longer than she cared to admit to figure out what he was asking. "No. No one but you."

He sighed and a tension left his shoulders that she hadn't noticed he was carrying. "Me too. There's never been anyone else for me."

She felt relieved to hear that, and also embarrassed at how relieved she was. "Is that what this is all about? A possessiveness thing?"

"No." As he said that, he moved suddenly, pushing her back down to the bed and settling over her once more. "What this is about is spending nearly every moment of the last month near you and not being able to touch you. I wanted you to want this as much as I do."

She lifted her hips to grind herself against him; they both moaned at the contact. "You _hated_ me a month ago."

"No. I hated the Warden-Commander. I didn't know she was you when I came here." He kissed her, tongue twining with hers, but pulled away much too soon to trail kisses down along her jaw and throat. "It took me a long time to consolidate what I knew and what I'd heard. I'll make it up to you someday."

Cathain gasped as his mouth traveled to her collarbone. "So you mean to tell me you've been this wound up just watching me… what, fill out paperwork and clean out the basement?"

"Mmm. Killing darkspawn, putting upstart vassals in their place, strategizing with Varel and all those damn maps. You're like wildfire under my skin, consuming me." He took a nipple into his mouth and she cried out, but he didn't linger there either. "I wanted to fuck you against the wall in that training room in the cellar. Part of me wanted to keep the sword at your throat while I did."

"There are walls in here too. Not too late," she ground out. That should not have been such a hot image, not with what they were literally doing _right now_ , but she knew she'd be thinking about it later.

Nathaniel chuckled against her ribs. "Maybe next time." He paused for a moment and stared up at her. "You really are being extraordinarily patient by your standards. I expected you would have resorted to trickery or bribery by now to get me on my back."

Cait heard the question even though he hadn't asked it. "It's not like you to take the lead like this. It's refreshing. Also really, really sexy. I hope this won't be the only time you do." She found one of his hands and tugged on it until he finally prowled back up her body, settling between her legs again. "That being said, if we don't get this show on the road soon, I'll be forced to take matters into my own hands."

He kissed her, rough and needy, his self-control finally starting to fray at the edges. She reached for the laces on his breeches, fumbling at them blindly, but he stopped her again. "What do you want, Caitie? I need to hear you say it."

"I want you, Nathaniel. I've always wanted you." She put a trembling hand on his cheek, keeping his eyes glued to hers. He wanted her to say it, he should be more careful what he wished for. Against his lips, she whispered, "I want you inside me. Make love to me. Fuck me. Everything in between. Please, Nate."

He surged forward, kissing her hungrily, fingers finally going to her hips to finish undressing her. When he finally, finally touched her, long fingers dipping into slick folds, she bucked up into it with a broken moan, too far past the point of reason to do anything but seek more.

"Is all of that because of me?" He teased, voice dark and warm. But she was too far gone for teasing, her entire grasp on language boiled down to the words 'Nate' and 'please', so he took pity on her and slipped a finger inside her. The noise she made could have shaken the foundations of the Vigil, but he anticipated it, pressing his lips to hers and swallowing the sound.

They had not been apart so long for him to forget what she liked, and even if he had she wasn't shy about directing him. She felt like a coiled spring, winding tighter with every move of his clever fingers, and it didn't take much for him to unravel her entirely.

It took a little while to remember who and where she was, but when Cait opened her eyes again Nathaniel was still watching her. "I will never get tired of watching that," he growled before kissing her tenderly.

She could feel him pressed hard against her hip and the tension in his body to keep from rubbing against her, but he still wasn't pushing. How was he still this much in control?

"If I try to touch you, are you going to push me away again?" She asked, but she was already reaching for him. 

Her hands were much steadier now and the laces fell away easily. She waited then, watching his face, making sure he still wanted this. He ground out a "please, Caitie" and she finally freed him from his trousers, which he kicked away to be lost in some far corner of her room, and took him in hand. The weight in her hand was familiar; so was the gratifying groan he couldn't hold back when she stroked him.

Cait wished she had the opportunity to explore him like he'd done to her, but he was barely holding himself together. He was almost eerily silent, as if he lost the ability to speak the moment she touched him. He always said she made enough noise for the both of them. Her lips found his again, less a kiss and more just contact, breathing the same air as she guided him inside her. He stared at her in awe from only inches away, breathing ragged and uneven. He didn't move.

"Come on, Nate," she breathed, wiggling her hips to try and get some friction, "I've got you. Please, love."

He shifted a little, pushing deeper, and even that tiny movement drew a broken moan from her throat. Then he slid a hand under her hips and started moving properly, setting a slow, relentless pace. He stayed silent, but she could read how he felt in his eyes on hers, in the unsteadiness of his breathing, in the trembling tension in his shoulders.

In contrast, she kept an almost constant stream of consciousness, egging him on, telling him how good it felt, how beautiful he was, but mostly just _oh, Maker, yes, Nate, please, yes_.

His other hand slid between them, thumb circling the bundle of nerves at her apex, and her vision went white as she came undone again. His rhythm faltered as he followed right after, her name like a prayer on his lips.

For a while, there was no sound in the room except their breathing and the lazy crackling of the fire. They just held each other, trying to remember who they were beyond the places where their bodies met.

Cait huffed a laugh. "Well, this isn't how I expected this night to go." Nate's shoulders shook with silent laughter and she buried her face against his chest, now giggling helplessly. "I just thought we could spend a little time together, maybe I could get to the point where I could touch you without being weird about it."

Now he was fully laughing too. "Seems like you accomplished that."

Nathaniel moved to pull away, but she hugged him before he could. "I missed you," she said softly. She wished she'd said it earlier, but at least she was saying it now. They were naked and sweaty and kinda gross, but for a moment it didn't matter. They were together.

"We were always good at this part," he murmured, kissing her neck, then her cheek, then her lips.

"Less chances for us to overthink it."

The next time he tried to move away, she let him, and they helped each other to their feet. They stood a little apart, awkward now that the afterglow had faded. Already overthinking again.

Cait stepped close to him, picking up the fraying strands of the closeness they'd been rebuilding, wrapping it back around them stubbornly as she took his hand. "Do you think it's too late to have another bath drawn?"

Nate laughed and relaxed abruptly. "I distinctly remember you saying you'd never take a bath with me again after the last time. Something about me being unable to keep my hands to myself and defeating the purpose."

She trailed her fingers through the hair on his chest and then up over his shoulders. "You know, they say the darkspawn taint gives Wardens all kinds of… increased stamina. I wouldn't mind testing that." She pulled him down so she could kiss him and added, "But maybe not right before we're supposed to leave for Amaranthine."

"Right. I almost forgot." He kissed her again. "Delilah could probably wait an extra day."

She giggled. "I want to be there when you have to look her in the eye and say 'sorry we're late, sister, Caitie couldn't walk because of all the sex we were having.'"

"Hmm. Might be worth it."

Eventually, they found and reorganized all the letters. One of them filled the water basin and got a cloth so they could clean up.

"Doyouwannastaythenight?" Cait blurted, once it was clear they'd run out of ways to stall getting dressed.

"Do I... what?" Nate paused in the search for his pants to look at her.

She took a deep breath and tried again, slower. "Do you want to stay the night?"

"I… thought I already was. Didn't we talk about that earlier?"

"Yes. Right. We did." She turned her back to him and started straightening the sheets. They were still mostly clean. She'd slept on worse.

His arms wound around her waist from behind and he pulled her against his chest. "You seem nervous."

"We've just never…" It felt like a bigger step than the sex did; they'd done that before, it was all of this, the stuff after, they'd never done. "I'm told I'm a blanket hog."

"I guess I'll just have to stay close."

"I sometimes have really bad nightmares. And the darkspawn dreams, too."

"Are you trying to talk me out of it?" He teased.

"No! No. I just want you to know what you're getting into." She covered her face. "Blight and damnation, when did I get so _shy_? This is all your fault."

"It's cute." He gave her a gentle nudge forward. "It's late, Caitie. Let's go to bed."

\-------

Nathaniel was still there when she woke up.

Not that Cait had expected him to leave. She just hadn't been completely sure it wasn't just a very elaborate dream. But here he was, dark hair a mess across her pillow in the early morning light. He was still deep asleep, but that wasn't surprising; she woke up before most people.

Byron had come to bed sometime after they fell asleep and had taken up every inch of mattress that didn't contain a human. To get out of bed, Cait would either need to wake one of them or learn to levitate.

She did neither, content to stay in bed a little longer. She felt surrounded, flanked by warm bodies and blankets, but it didn't feel stifling like she'd worried it might, like sometimes the very walls of her room did. It felt nice. Comforting. The slide of bare skin against her own, listening to his heartbeat and slow, even breathing… safe. That's what she felt. Safe. Loved.

She didn't know how she'd ever be able to go back to sleeping alone.

Restlessness eventually won out over comfort, and Cait carefully extricated her leg from under Byron and pulled Nate's hand away from her back and climbed slowly out of bed. She brushed a kiss to his forehead and whispered, "I'll be right back."

Now that the sun was up, she gave the room a cursory once over, but Nathaniel's trousers were still nowhere to be found. She hoped they hadn't thrown them in the fireplace in their haste the night before. She did find his shirt, though, and in a moment of inspiration she pulled it on. It wasn't as big on her as she expected, and the deep v of the neckline settled over the slight swell of her breasts rather attractively. Grinning mischievously to herself, she found a pair of clean leggings and her favorite boots and tugged them on too. 

Then she snuck down the hall to Nathaniel's room. It was a familiar route, one she'd traveled a hundred times before back when her room had been Delilah's and she was only a guest. She opened the door just a crack so the hinges didn't creak and squirmed inside. She hurried to grab a few things she thought he'd need: a change of clothes, his straight razor, and, after thinking about it for a second, his comb. He'd always been a bit particular about his hair. Then she snuck, arms laden with her spoils, back to her own room.

Nathaniel was awake when she came back. He propped his head on his hand and watched her walk in and set her stack of treasures in the chair, and kept watching her as she sat on the side of the bed and leaned down to kiss him.

"Good morning," she murmured. She couldn't keep a big, smitten grin off her face.

"Good morning," he said, leaning up to kiss her again. "Nice shirt."

"I thought so. I hope you don't mind." She pulled away before she gave in to the urge to climb back into bed with him.

"It looks better on you anyway." He looked her over slowly and she felt it like a physical touch. "Much better."

"I doubt that. Come on, we're wasting daylight. Byron, up!"

Cait double checked her travel pack while Nathaniel got dressed. She didn't think they'd be gone long, so she packed light, but you never knew. 

He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, like he’d done the night before. "You're about to say 'we need to talk'," he said into her hair, "I can tell in the way you won't look at me."

She leaned into him. "Yes. But not in a bad way, I hope. We just… need to lay a few ground rules, I think."

He brushed a kiss to the patch of skin under her ear. "I intend to court you. Officially. _Publicly_."

Cait shivered, both from his words and the trail of kisses he was now leaving down her bare neck. "Oh. Good. That… certainly answers that question, at least."

"What else?"

She sighed. "I'm still the Warden-Commander. And the Arlessa. I'm probably going to make decisions you don't like. I'm _definitely_ going to give you orders you don't like." She turned to face him; she needed to know he understood what she was saying. "But I'm still going to need you to follow them. I need you in my corner, especially in front of the nobility. The first sign of weakness and they will eat me alive."

"As if I'd give those vultures the satisfaction," he growled. "But I understand. I'm yours, unreservedly and without question."

Oh, she did like the sound of that. _Mine_. "You don't have a problem being bossed around by your girlfriend?"

"Caitie, you've been bossing me around since you were six. I knew what I was getting into." And then he kissed her, and she let the subject drop.


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once, Cait could have walked the road between Vigil's Keep and Amaranthine with her eyes closed. She knew every endless, rainy mile of it as well as she knew the halls of the Vigil. It was nearly as familiar as the walls and flowers and hidden passages of Highever itself - which, regardless of her fondness for Amaranthine, had still been her home.

Once, Cait could have walked the road between Vigil's Keep and Amaranthine with her eyes closed. She knew every endless, rainy mile of it as well as she knew the halls of the Vigil. It was nearly as familiar as the walls and flowers and hidden passages of Highever itself - which, regardless of her fondness for Amaranthine, had still been her home.

But time was more cruel than any darkspawn, and the road to Amaranthine was not as she remembered. It had grown wild, packed dirt and cobblestone now broken by tree roots, overgrown by the encroaching forest, beset by bandits and worse.

They were traveling with a couple of Varel's soldiers - Garevel’s soldiers, technically, but Cait tended to think of everyone in the Vigil as either ‘my people’ or ‘Varel's people.’ Even though Varel himself was one of her people, as loyal as any of the Wardens and he had to deal with a lot more shit than they did.

These soldiers, Jasper and Avina, were… certainly _enthusiastic_. Young and excited to be on a mission with the Hero of Ferelden, which they insisted on calling Cait instead of any of her actual ranks or, perhaps, _her blighted name_. She stopped trying to strike up conversation with them before they’d even left sight of the keep.

“Cait,” Anders asked slowly, “why are there children following us?”

“Because we are going on a rescue mission and we need someone with us to bring the girl home. I doubt she’ll want to continue on to the city with us.” Very quietly, she added, “I never thought I’d regret wanting to save someone from kidnappers, but here we are.”

“Look on the bright side!” He slung an arm around her, conveniently blocking them from view by his height alone. “Free cannon fodder!”

“Shhhhh!” She put a hand over his mouth but was laughing as she did.

It was a beautiful day, by Amaranthine standards. The sky was overcast and heavy, but it didn’t smell like rain was due yet and the air was warm with the promise of summer around the corner. Good day to embarrass some kidnappers and maybe visit the market in the city.

Cait was trying very hard not to think about Delilah. Delilah, who had been her sister in all but blood since the moment they were born, less than a week apart. Delilah, who Cait hadn’t seen in three years, who had gotten married and she hadn’t known about it.

“You weren’t at breakfast this morning,” Anders said, quiet and dangerously casual.

“I slept in.”

“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” he said, which she elbowed him for. “You know, Nathaniel wasn’t at breakfast either. What an interesting coincidence.”

She knew her face must be red. She refused to acknowledge it. “Don't ask if you don't want the answer, Anders."

“That _is_ an answer.” He looked everywhere but at her, but his arm tightened around her shoulder in a quick, one-sided hug. “Good for you. If he breaks your heart, I'll set him on fire."

She hugged him, wrapping her arms around his still too skinny waist. It was awkward, and they tripped over each other a little on the uneven road, but it was good. “Noted. And appreciated.”

He pointed behind them before she could say anything else. “Not to interrupt, but I think Oghren is giving your baby soldiers some of that swill he ferments in his backpack.”

“Of course he is.” She sighed, weary to the depths of her soul, then turned around to see if he was telling the truth. “Oghren, if they pass out, you’re the one carrying them. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”

 

\-------

“Leader up front, two flanking” Cait muttered.

“Three archers in the back,” Nathaniel added, barely loud enough for her to hear.

“That bridge is a bottleneck,” Oghren grunted, “Either get across it real sodding quick or wait for them to come to us.”

“One on the left is a mage,” Anders said, nodding briefly toward the woman in question.

“There are four in the tent,” Justice said sternly, much louder than the rest of them. “One of them is afraid.”

That meant ten bandits total just to shake down a nobleman that was supposed to come alone? There was no way Ser Bensley would have left this cove under his own power. Wouldn’t be enough against five Wardens, though.

Nathaniel put a hand on Cait’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper in her ear, “Please tell me you aren't honestly considering giving these bastards money.”

“Of course not. Trust me, remember?” She touched his hand, then shrugged it off. “Be ready.”

Then she strode ahead, staying three paces in front of the others. She tried to affect the cocky swagger Zevran always wore into these situations; he had a way of convincing people he was supposed to be there, no matter where it was. Cait was pretty sure she just looked angry.

The man she’d identified as the leader confirmed her suspicions when he called out to her. “We told Bensley to come himself. Alone.”

Cathain leaned against a small rock outcropping, relaxed and casual and blocking herself off from anything that might try to sneak up on her. “Yes, well, I was in the neighborhood so I thought I'd come on his behalf.”

“And who the fuck are you, princess?” He looked her over. She didn’t miss the way he paused at the griffon on her chest, again at her knives.

“I'm the Warden-Commander, who the fuck are you?” The two bandits behind him took an involuntary step back. Cait bared her teeth. She was already bored with this. “Where's the girl?”

“Where's the money?”

She held up a small pouch, letting the coins jingle within. “Give me the girl or you won’t see a single blighted copper of it.”

They dragged a young girl out of a nearby tent. The girl, Eileen Bensley, couldn’t have been any older than sixteen and was terrified past the point of being able to speak. Her dress was ripped and filthy, her hair so dirty Cait couldn’t even tell what color it was, and she flinched at the slightest movement. Rage hardened in her chest at the tear streaks on Eileen’s face; she fought hard to keep her hands off her weapons.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” she said, as gently as she could manage. She waited until she nodded before addressing the apparent leader again, voice full of steel, “Hand her over.”

“Give me the money first.” He dropped several points in her estimation of his intelligence.

“Hand. Her. Over.” She stared him down, impatient, unintimidated, _furious_. He blinked first.

He nodded brusquely at one of the men holding the girl and they shoved her forward. Cait caught her before she fell and she clung to her, sobbing into her armor. “I've got you, sweetheart,” she said, not taking her eyes off of the bandit leader. She brushed a bit of the girl’s hair back from her face. “Eileen, right? You're safe now, Eileen. We're going to get you home to your father. Nathaniel.” Nate gently pried the girl from Cait and led her to Jasper and Avina, speaking gently to her the whole way.

“My money,” demanded the dead man.

“You know what I think?” Now that Eileen was safe, Cait no longer bothered to sound the slightest bit friendly. “I think I don't want kidnappers on my lands. I think that girl was the only thing keeping you alive.” She drew and threw a dagger in one fluid motion. The leader surged into action, but too late; It caught him in the throat, and she watched with a cold gratification as his body slumped to the ground.

There had been twelve of them, in the end. Two were hiding behind a large rock outcropping, behind the mage where her magic had obscured them from Justice’s senses. It didn’t make a difference.

“Search the area,” Cait ordered. “Make sure there aren’t any others hidden in the shadows. And check the bodies. If they weren’t working alone, I want to know about it.” Trusting that her orders would be followed, Cait turned her full attention back to Eileen.

The girl stared up at her with wide eyes. She hugged Byron, fingers clutched in his fur, and he tried to make himself look as harmless as possible for a war dog. She was so _small_. Cait couldn’t remember ever being that small. But Eileen met her eyes and held them, and no longer looked afraid. “Are you really the Hero of Ferelden?”

Cait fought not to cringe. “Some people have called me that. I prefer to be called by my name. I’m Cait.”

“I’m Eileen. But you knew that already. Did my father send you?”

“He did. This is Jasper and Avina.” She pointed at Jasper, hovering awkwardly nearby; he was barely older than Eileen. “They work for me and they're going to get you home safe to your family, okay?” She threw the pouch of gold that she’d shown the kidnappers at Avina, who fumbled it a little before catching it. “Anything she needs, get it for her. If that isn’t enough, let me know how much I owe you when you get back to the Vigil.”

“Yes, ser!” They said together as they actually, honest-to-Maker, _saluted_ her.

She watched them leave until the forest swallowed them, then turned back to the bandit camp. It didn't contain much: a few crates of half-spoiled food, a pile of firewood, the single tent they'd been keeping Eileen in.

Oghren and Justice found no other bandits; the cove ended at a steep cliff down to the Amaranthine Ocean and no other places someone might hide. Nathaniel returned her dagger from the body of the leader, as well as a blade he'd drawn but never had a chance to use.

She gave it a cursory spin, checking the balance. It was front-heavy, the blade of much denser metal than the hilt, but it hummed ever-so-slightly from some kind of enchantment. She stuck it in her belt to inspect more thoroughly when she had time.

Anders was the last to return, bearing a small stack of papers for her. Most were drafts of threatening letters to Ser Bensley. One was a half-written and clearly heavily forced note written by Eileen; most of it was written in a shaky hand, but it suddenly ended in a large, angry _DON'T GIVE THEM ANYTHING PAPA_ and then a blot of spilled ink. Cait swelled with pride for the girl. She'd fought back where she could.

The last note made Cait's stomach drop to her knees. It was orders to the lead kidnapper from his apparent patron, signed _‘burn this letter once received’_ with a very familiar signature and the symbol of a bear on a yellow and white shield.

She'd known Esmerelle was behind a lot of the issues still plaguing Amaranthine. She knew in her gut that the bann was also behind the plot against her, though she still didn't have any proof. But that bear… that made things much more complicated.

She held it out to Nathaniel without a word and he stared for a moment uncomprehending. “That's my family crest. Why is it here?”

“Any chance your sister could be behind the assassination plot?” Anders asked hesitantly.

“No.” Cait and Nathaniel said simultaneously. She added, “Delilah never had much taste for subterfuge. If she wanted me dead, she'd do it herself. She’s like her brother, in that way.”

“Then they're trying to make the old Arl into a martyr.”

Cait pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache building behind her eyes. “Of course they are. Oust the Cousland usurper and put the arling back in the hands of it's rightful owners.”

“Such a shame that the remaining Howes have been brainwashed by the usurper,” Anders said sourly, voicing exactly what Cait was thinking. “They have no choice but to remove them as well.”

Cait sighed. She hated politics. “We should get moving if we want to get to the city by nightfall.” She folded up the papers and stuck them in her bag, then led the way back to the road.

\-------

They did not, in fact, arrive in the city before nightfall. They walked through the main gate just after full dark, when the market was closed but the streets weren't empty yet. The open doorways of taverns beckoned to them, beacons of light and laughter in the night.

As they walked past the first one, a seedy bar with light peeking out through the uneven boards of the walls, Cait became aware of an additional presence at her side.

“You are getting complacent, my dear Warden,” Zevran said with a sly smile. “If I were an assassin, you would already be dead.”

“You _are_ an assassin,” Cait said, feeling an answering smile spread across her own face.

“Then it is a good thing for you that I am retired.” He chuckled. “Is it strange to say that I missed you?”

“It’s barely been two weeks,” she said fondly, “but I missed you too.”

“Ah, but there is someone else who has missed you as well. She's waiting for you.”

Cait froze, suddenly nervous. She fidgeted with a buckle on her armor. “She is? It’s not too late? Maybe we should wait until morning. I don’t want to impose.”

“I have seen you face down demons without blinking, but you’re scared of a merchant’s wife?” Anders laughed, appearing behind Zevran. Cait had kind of forgotten he was there. She’d remember to feel guilty about that later, when she was in a calmer state of mind.

“I don’t care about the opinions of my enemies.”

Nathaniel put his hand on her back, warm and reassuring. “If we don’t go see her tonight, she’ll just hunt us down.”

Cait laughed and it settled her nerves. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” She turned to Anders and gave him a handful of sovereigns from her coin purse. “Whichever tavern you pick, get Nate and I rooms.”

“Are you sure?” He asked, but he took her money anyway. “You must not know the kind of places I drink at.”

“Whatever it is, I guarantee I’ve slept in worse.”

Then they left, following Zevran down the winding, cobblestone streets of Amaranthine. Cait hadn't often been here at night; 'the city wasn't safe for children', Adria, the Howes’ governess, had always said, 'especially not for pretty young ladies'.

It was beautiful. The windows shone like fireflies, warm light reflecting on the stone of the streets and buildings until the whole city seemed to glow. Jewel of the North, indeed.

Delilah's house was small but tidy, in a quiet corner just off the market district. The lights were on, and Cait could see shadows moving around inside. Zevran knocked before she could try to back out again.

The door burst open and a tiny woman with the same dark hair and pale eyes as Nathaniel sprang out and threw herself into her brother's startled arms. He wrapped himself around her, nearly dwarfing her entirely, and they stayed like that for a long, quiet moment.

From somewhere within the tangle of Howes, a delicate arm snaked out toward Cait. “Come on then,” said Delilah's stern, sweet voice. “This is a family reunion, Caitie Cousland. That means you too.” 

They enveloped her as soon as she stepped close. She couldn’t tell which arms belonged to which person; she pressed her face into the nearest shoulder and willed the tears building in her eyes not to fall.

She didn’t know how much time had passed before Delilah cleared her throat and stepped back, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. “Well, come on inside. Dinner’s getting cold. You too, Zevran, don’t think I don’t see you hiding back there, you aren’t as good at it as you think.” She turned and walked inside, assuming that the rest of them would follow.

The inside of the house was as cozy and tidy as the outside, filled with the smell of baked goods. A man with light brown hair and a nervous smile stepped out of the kitchen, wearing an apron covered in flour. He shook Nate’s hand and said, “Albert Reese. You must be Nathaniel.”

“I am. Pleasure to meet you.”

Albert offered Cait his hand next. “I know who _you_ are. Everyone in town’s got something to say about you,” he said, sounding so genuinely friendly that she couldn’t help but smile.

“They’re probably untrue. Definitely exaggerated,” she said and Albert laughed.

“My Lilah tells some wild stories about you too.” He started walking back toward the kitchen and they all followed.

“ _Those_ are likely true, I’m afraid.”

Dinner was delicious, the best meal Cait had had since Nan died, and by the time they’d finished dessert she was already trying to figure out how to convince them to come live at the Vigil. Albert was charming, with a warm smile and easy laugh, and was clearly, hopelessly in love with his wife. Delilah shuffled around the house, never seeming to stop moving; Cait wondered if she actually thought she was hiding the roundness of her belly under the loose housecoat she wore over her dress, or if she just didn’t want to talk about it yet.

“So how long have you been back?” Delilah asked her brother as they all settled in the little sitting room.

“Two months back in Ferelden. One in Amaranthine.” Nathaniel laced his fingers with Cait’s as he relaxed on the sofa next to her. “I didn’t know where to find you or if you were alive, otherwise I’d have been here sooner.”

Delilah looked skeptical, but turned her attention to Cait. “And _you’ve_ been here a month. And clearly possess the resources to have got in touch sooner.”

“I didn’t think I’d be welcome,” Cait said honestly. “Nate tried to kill me as soon as I got here.”

“Nathaniel Howe!” Delilah scolded, looking like she was considering throwing her teacup at him.

Cait laughed. “Relax, Lilah. It was a misunderstanding. We’ve worked it out.”

“I see that,” she muttered, but set her tea down at least. “I heard about what happened to your family, Caitie. I am so sorry.”

“It’s…” she started to say _okay_ , but that was a lie. She amended, “It’s not your fault.”

“I hear you’re the one that killed Father,” Delilah said, voice hard. All Cait could do was nod. “ _Good_. It should have been you if it couldn’t be me. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Delilah! The man may have done some terrible things, but he was still our father!” Nathaniel said, but he just sounded resigned, sad, instead of angry. Cait squeezed his hand.

“You weren't here, Nate. You didn’t see what he became. Violent, paranoid, lashing out at everyone over the smallest slight. I ran away as soon as I could. That’s how I met Albert.” The anger faded from her face as she smiled at her husband. “He saw me in the market and offered me a loaf of bread and a job at his bakery. We’ve been together ever since.”

“And when are you due?” Cait was happy to move to friendlier subjects.

“Due? Delilah, are you pregnant?” Nathaniel sat forward on the couch, studying his sister.

Cait laughed. “How could you miss it? That baby’s almost as big as she is!”

Delilah put a hand on the swell of her belly, leaning back against Albert to really bring attention to it. “Soon. Before summer, likely. Do you want to feel her kick?”

Watching Nathaniel greet his niece or nephew for the first time was a revelation Cait had not been prepared for. His smile was boyish and joyful and _exceedingly attractive_ , and when he turned it toward her it felt like a punch in the gut. She’d never given much thought to having children before, but for just a moment it overwhelmed her. She pushed it down, bottled it up as well as the wave of panic that followed in its wake, and by the time Delilah approached her, her smile was easy and uncomplicated again.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she said to Delilah’s belly, feeling the strange shift and twitch of the life growing within, “I’m your Auntie Cait. I can’t wait to meet you.”

Delilah’s smile was warm, but her eyes were shrewd as she stared at the spot on the sofa where Cait and Nathaniel’s hands were still linked between them. “So how long has this been going on?” she asked, as if she didn't know. As if Cait hadn’t confessed everything to her in the dark of their shared bedroom, as if she wasn’t the only person alive who had ever heard Cait say ‘love’ and ‘Nathaniel’ in the same terrified sentence.

“Four days,” said Cait and it wasn’t quite a lie. At the same time, Nathaniel said “thirteen years,” but it wasn’t quite the truth.

“Uh-huh,” said Delilah, somehow seeing through both of them to the truth in between. But she relented, and returned to her seat next to her husband, and the conversation turned to lighter things.

It was very late when they left with many hugs and promises to visit soon and often. Zevran stayed behind, had apparently been staying with them for days. Cait was too tired to question it. 

They found Anders at the Crown and Lion Inn, still drinking merrily and losing a lot of money at cards. The patrons were apparently too drunk to notice he was a mage, or simply didn’t care, even as he used a bit of frost magic to chill his drink. How refreshing. Anders gave Cait her room key with an exaggerated wink that she didn’t understand until she went upstairs to find Nate was already in her room, _their_ room, having gone up before her while she chatted with the drunken mage. At least he’d gotten them a decent-sized bed.

It had been a good day. Long, emotionally draining, mildly panic-inducing on several different levels she didn’t have the time or energy to examine, but good. She undressed quickly, leaving her armor, weapons, and clothes in an untidy pile in a chair, and crawled into the thankfully clean and surprisingly soft bed. She watched Nathaniel disrobe more slowly, leaving his belongings neatly folded and sorted. It was cute. The novelty of this stage in their relationship was still fresh enough that she couldn’t help lay there and stare at him, gorgeous and graceful and _hers_.

He climbed into bed and pulled her close and she was asleep within minutes.

\-------

Cait woke him the next morning with her lips on his skin and finally took the opportunity to explore him like he'd done to her a few nights ago. Their bed creaked alarmingly under his grip as Nathaniel clenched his fists around the posts of the headboard in an effort to keep them out of her hair. She felt a heady rush at the idea that this was something she was allowed to do now, first thing in the morning or whenever they wanted to. It was almost the same rush she felt watching him shake and gasp as he came undone. He was quick and eager to return the favor, and she didn't last much longer than he had, had no means or desire to defend herself against his clever tongue, and covered her mouth with her hand so she didn't wake the whole inn as she shouted her release.

He grinned against her lips as they curled back up together on the bed. “Good morning.”

“Mmm, it is now.” She chuckled and pulled him down for another kiss. “We should have done this ages ago.”

“I know it's been a while, but we have definitely done this before.” He caressed her back, tracing the scar from the archdemon.

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.”

Neither of them made any attempt to get out of bed for a long time. 

Byron eventually took issue with it and came over to stand next to Cait. When she turned to look his way, he let out a deep, warning _boof_. If they didn't get moving, he would bring every patron in the building running their way.

They still managed to beat Anders and Oghren downstairs, but Justice sat at a corner table in the bar with a mug of ale in front of him. Cait was pretty sure he'd been in the same place when she'd gone to bed last night.

“Did Anders not get you a room?” she asked as she sat down across from him.

“He did. I preferred to stay here.” His eyes traveled the room, more emotional than she’d ever seen from him before. “There is an energy to this space, of all the souls that have passed through it. It is… enlightening. Invigorating. Are all human cities like this?”

“I… don’t know,” Cait said. “You can see the energy people leave behind? Or feel it?”

“I can feel it. Like the sun on my skin.” Justice held his hand over the table between them. “A man once sat in this chair with a ring in a box, practicing a speech to ask his beloved to marry him. Another was drinking to numb his pain, a persistent headache that had lasted several days. He could not afford to visit a physician, but he could afford another drink.” He dropped his hand to the smooth wood of the tabletop. “Layers upon layers on every surface.”

“That’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“The Vigil must be very noisy for you,” said Nathaniel. “They say it’s been around for thousands of years. I can’t even imagine how many lives have been lived there.”

Justice studied Nate with those too-knowing eyes of his. “You want to know about the lives of your ancestors.” He nodded to himself as if Nathaniel had answered, even though he didn’t say anything. “In the Fade, nothing outlives the spirit that made it. Here, everything is built upon the bones of what came before. Yes, many souls have passed over the stones of Vigil’s Keep. Some of them bore the name Howe. When we return, I will tell you of them.”

The conversation shifted as Anders and Oghren stumbled downstairs and slumped into empty chairs. They looked like they were regretting several of their life choices.

“So!” Cait said, loudly and with more cheer than necessary. She clapped her hands once and grinned as her hungover friends groaned at the noise. “Does anyone have business in the city while we’re here? I know Justice, you wanted to visit Aura. I also need to find a man named Colbert. Apparently he found a gorge in the hills to the west that may lead to the Deep Roads.” 

As she spoke, she reached into her bag and pulled out a couple vials, placing one each in front of Anders and Oghren. “Maybe try to limit yourselves next time when you’re on the job, please,” she said sweetly, but she knew they could hear the order in the words; they were hungover, not stupid. “Drink all you want on your own time, but I will not hesitate to drop you into a nest of darkspawn while you’re wasted.”

They both muttered something that sounded like “yes, Commander” as they drank their potions. She gave them a few minutes for the worst of their headaches to fade, and then they all got to work.

Their second meeting with Aura went… better. She didn’t panic at the sight of her husband’s possessed body, which was a start. Justice told her, fumbling but sincere, that he mourned Kristoff’s loss with her, that he would avenge him. Cait didn’t know Aura well enough to read the look on her face, but she hoped she found comfort in his words. He stood as little taller as they left.

Talking with Colbert and his partner Micah was enlightening, but frustrating. Colbert said a lot of things that didn’t matter and Micah said barely anything at all. They spoke in circles for what felt like hours until Cait gave in and threw money at them to get an answer that made sense. A couple sovereigns magically got her exactly the information she needed.

Cait wished a couple sovereigns could solve the problem Colbert’s story brought to light. An open path between the surface and the Deep Roads, in a land beset by new types of darkspawn. There was no way this could be coincidence, and no way Cait could ignore it either.

“I won’t order any of you to come with me,” she said, once they’d moved away from the city crowds. “The Deep Roads are miserable. It’s either a slog through empty, lightless tunnels a hundred miles underground, or it’s a constant battle versus endless hordes of darkspawn, and there’s not much in between. Volunteers only.”

“I go where you go,” said Nathaniel firmly.

“That’s really sweet,” Cait said, and it was. It was hopelessly, _stupidly_ romantic, but she was apparently into that. “but I don’t think you understand what you’re committing to.”

“Then I guess I’ll find out when we get there.”

“Well, I can’t let you have all the fun,” added Anders.

“We’ve been to the Deep Roads together before,” said Oghren. “How much worse can it be?”

“If it is as dangerous as you say, I will not leave you to face it alone,” Justice said.

Cait was torn between indignation that they were all so stubborn to not take the opportunity to stay behind, and humbled that she had such loyal friends. “Thank you. We’ll take the rest of the day to resupply and head out at first light tomorrow. Anything you need to do in the city, do it now. And _try_ to stay sober please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Delilah's husband Albert was never given a last name in the game and doesn't have one on the wiki, so I decided to make one up for him


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The space between the politics and sturdy walls of the Vigil and the heavy dark of the Deep Roads - that was freedom.

It was nearly a week’s travel to the Knotwood Hills and this supposed chasm. It was the longest Cait had been on the road in months, and she relished the soreness in her legs and the sun on her skin and the dirt on her boots. She knew what she was probably walking toward, but she didn’t let herself dread it. The space between the politics and sturdy walls of the Vigil and the heavy dark of the Deep Roads - that was _freedom_. That’s where she felt most alive.

They spent most of the first day teaching Justice the names of different birds and plants and trees as they crossed their paths. Nathaniel was by far the most knowledgeable, being the most well-traveled and spending so much of his life outdoors. Cait knew a decent amount, especially about trees and practical applications for plants, and Anders knew a surprising amount about healing properties of herbs and flowers. Oghren, having been on the surface for less than two years, knew less than the rest of them, but if it could be eaten or fermented into some kind of ale, his knowledge surpassed anyone else’s by miles.

On the second day, Cait cut her hair. They were passing through a heavily wooded stretch of road, and after the third time a low branch tangled in her braid, she cut it off cleanly with her knife. It had been getting too long, anyway, and it was only a matter of time before she’d gotten tired of it. She woman she saw in her mirror that night, with her bright storm-colored eyes and her choppy, dark brown hair only barely falling to her chin, was familiar in a way the tired, long-haired Warden-Commander hadn’t been.

The third day, the Joining finally caught up with Anders. He ate three helpings of breakfast and tried to steal Cait’s coffee. He nearly bounced down the road, full of energy and with no outlet for it.

“Is this what the world always feels like for you?” He asked Cait. “The humming?”

She nodded. “I don’t notice it much anymore. You learn to drown it out.”

“And you can tell the difference between Wardens and darkspawn?”

“I can even tell the difference between different Wardens.” She closed her eyes for a moment. She could still see her friends like afterimages from the sun and Justice shining like a beacon, so much brighter than the rest. “How do you feel besides the humming?”

He thought about it for a few minutes in silence. “Hungry? Like I could eat lunch already even though breakfast was only an hour ago.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really go away.” She threw a pouch of candied almonds his way, one of the snacks she’d picked up in Amaranthine. “You may have trouble sleeping in the next few weeks. Bad dreams. Headaches. It’s different for everyone.”

“At least I have you!” Anders grinned. “Vague expectations are better than none at all. I can’t imagine having to go through this alone.”

“I survived,” Cait said with a shrug. “It’s what I do.”

“ _That_ is what I think all of us have in common,” Anders said.

On the fourth day, Cait stopped setting up her tent. The pretense of it was unnecessary. They all knew she was sleeping with Nathaniel, and she was tired of trying to act like it was supposed to be a secret. It felt liberating to acknowledge it publicly, even just among friends.

On the fifth day, Nate tried to teach her how to use a bow.

He had tried in the past, several times. So had Mother. So had Leliana. She understood the mechanics of it, she was theoretically strong enough to hold a full draw, she could throw a dagger so she should be able to sight and fire an arrow.

In practice, she was _really bad_ at it. She was built for speed, not for stamina, and her arms were already shaking after a few failed attempts. On the rare occasion she could get an arrow to go anywhere but directly in the dirt at her feet, it went wildly off mark, sometimes missing the target by yards.

They were camping for the night at the last bit of flat ground before the Knotwood Hills. They had stopped early, not knowing how far they’d have to travel to the gorge they were after, so it was just at sunset when Nathaniel dragged Cait into the woods to help him hunt down something for dinner. She was pretty sure they were going to starve before she ever hit a rabbit. She doubted she could hit a sleeping bronto.

“Here.” He stepped behind her, one hand on her hip and the other on her shoulder to adjust her stance into something a little closer to correct. “Draw as you raise it into position. Try and hit that tree over there, with the white flowers.”

“You know, you don't need to make excuses anymore to take me out in the woods and fondle me,” she teased, but she did as he said, sighting down the arrow to the apple tree he'd pointed to.

“It's always about sex with you,” he chuckled. He adjusted her position again, unlocking her elbow and lifting the arrow fletching up to brush the corner of her mouth. “Don't lower the bow until after the arrow hits its mark. Take a deep breath, release on the exhale.”

Deep breath, release on the exhale. The arrow skipped across the bark on the left side of the tree and disappeared deeper into the forest. Cait lowered the bow with a sigh. “I don't get it.”

Nathaniel took his bow back and nocked, drew, and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow hit the center of the trunk with a solid thunk. Cait pulled one of her daggers from her back and threw it; it hit just to the right of the arrow, sending pieces of feather floating to the ground from where it grazed the fletching. She shrugged. “I don't get it.”

She walked to the tree and gently coaxed her blade free. “It's not _always_ about sex, you know. I'm just… better at that part. I speak better with action than with words.” She turned around and he was _right there_. “I literally have a knife _in my hand_ , why would you sneak up on me like that?”

He covered her hand with his and lowered the dagger away from his sternum. She let it drop to the ground as she stared up at him, at the earnest affection in his pale eyes and the gentle smile on his face. He reached behind her and pulled his arrow from the tree, smoothing the bark over the hole it left; the whole time, his eyes never left hers.

The arrow and his bow joined her dagger on the ground. He touched her face, fingers light and reverent on her cheek. She knew what he was going to ask before he whispered, “Can I kiss you?”

“You don't need to ask, you know,” she said, already reaching for him. “Consider this explicit permission to kiss me whenever you want to.”

“And miss out on the look you give me when I ask? Never. I’ll still ask when we’re old and grey.” His lips met hers before she could think of a proper response to that. His kiss was slow and sweet and achingly tender and Cait started to suspect she wasn’t the only one who found it easier to communicate like this. They had to break apart eventually, but they stayed close, unwilling to leave the serenity around them.

A thought occurred to Cait and she voiced it against her better judgement, “Aren’t we supposed to be hunting right now?”

“I set snares on our way here,” Nathaniel said quietly, forehead pressed to hers. “Your charming and fumbling attempts at archery probably scared dinner right into them.”

She gasped and pushed him away as he started laughing. “Nathaniel Howe! I can’t believe you _used_ me like that!”

On the sixth day, they finally entered the Knotwood Hills. They were steep and rocky and they spent as much time climbing as they did walking. Within hours, their passage had slowed to a crawl. Cathain, being a consummate climber, and Nathaniel, with his light armor and strong shoulders, didn’t face much trouble, but even they'd been spending too much time sitting around the Vigil instead of training, and started to slow after a few slopes.

The others weren't so lucky. Oghren had the strength and skill for climbing, but he also had 60 pounds of additional armor he had to drag uphill, and while Justice did not feel fatigue, Kristoff’s body was still human and subject to human limitations, and in his heavy armor he started to struggle as the ground got steeper below them. Anders didn’t have the burden of armor, but he was not used to this kind of exertion. Byron didn’t have thumbs, but somehow still outpaced them all, barking encouragement down from the top of steep outcroppings.

Luckily, they didn’t have to go far. They scaled the top of an especially tall outcropping and almost fell right in it.

It was a huge chasm, easily sixty feet deep and wider across, a jagged wound across the hills and completely invisible until you were right above it. It looked natural, likely caused by an earthquake or something, but a rickety set of wooden stairs led down into it, and Cait recognized the laid roads and etched stone at the bottom to be decidedly dwarven in make.

Oghren confirmed it, leaning farther over than Cait was comfortable. “Heh heh, would you look at that. Looks like those bastards back in town weren't just conning you out of money. The sodding Deep Roads.” He cuffed her on the shoulder and she had to adjust her footing to keep from tumbling into the hole in the world. “Just like old times, eh, Commander?”

“I fell down a flight of stairs once,” Nathaniel said quietly, “They looked much like this particular set of stairs.”

“I hope stairs will be the worst of our worries,” Cait replied, but she knew she was wrong.

And so, on the sixth day, they climbed down into the Deep Roads.

\-------

They didn’t have to go far before they found their first darkspawn. The cavern was still well lit by sunlight and let them clearly see the small group and the body they were dragging. Cait recognized the armor of the Legion of the Dead, and was moving to intercept when the ‘body’ moved suddenly. A twitch, a roll, and the Legionnaire dragged themselves to their feet, stolen darkspawn blade in hand.

The fight was over quickly. The small band of darkspawn may have been enough to overpower one Legionnaire, but they were outnumbered once the Wardens joined.

Cait turned to the Legionnaire before the last darkspawn had even finished slumping to the ground. “Are you all right?”

They ripped off their helmet to reveal a dirty, panting, bright-eyed dwarven woman. Her face was heavily tattooed, a style that seemed to be popular with the members of the Legion Cathain had met before. She grinned up at her. “I might have cracked a rib, but it’s hard to be sure. Everything hurts.”

“Do you need help? My friend’s a healer.” Anders stepped forward at Cait’s words, but she waved them off.

“I’m fine. I just need to catch my breath.” She sat down with a pained huff and Cait sat down next to her after a second. “I’m Sigrun.”

“I’m Cait.” She offered a hand and Sigrun shook it, grip firm and warm even though she was clearly exhausted.

“Why are a bunch of humans here?” She looked at them each in turn, studying, cataloging, filing away whatever she saw. “It isn’t safe to wander around the Deep Roads.”

“We’re Grey Wardens,” Cait said. She thought the armor made it obvious.

“Ah. My condolences,” Sigrun said, still smiling.

“And why are you here? This is a long way out, even for the Legion.”

That knocked the smile from Sigrun's face. She looked much older without it. “There’s something going on at the old fortress of Kal’Hirol. I think the darkspawn are breeding an army. We went to investigate but… it was a massacre. I’m the only one left.”

“Not anymore.” Cait bit back an automatic offer of sympathy. She had great respect for the Legion, but they'd been dead when she met them and they neither wanted or needed her commiseration.

“What? Really? Did I mention Kal’Hirol was a death trap?” Sigrun looked her over again, then looked past her. Assessing their capability. Cait tried not to take offense.

Cait considered being vague about their purpose here, but if there was anyone who could help her with the puzzle they'd been dropped into, it was the Legion of the Dead. “Did these darkspawn talk to you?”

“I… yes.” And then Sigrun's smile was back. “How did you know?”

“We’ve run into a few of them too,” Cait said, and Sigrun nodded, unsurprised. “We’re trying to find the source. I think your mission and mine coincide.”

“All right. Then let’s not waste time.” Sigrun struggled to her feet. Anders stepped forward to help, but she waved him off again.

Cait stood up too, brushing the stone dust from her armor. “Lead the way.”

__\-------_ _

It turned out that Sigrun wasn’t the only remaining member of the Legion, but that didn’t last long. Cait tried to give them a moment, but there weren’t many places to go for privacy. She just stood to the side, eyes down, and tried not to think about her own past or future or all the death in both.

Sigrun walked up to her after some time, eyes dry but distant. She nodded and they set off again. After a few minutes of silence, she asked “What are the Children? Jukka mentioned them before he…”

“They’re a new kind of darkspawn,” Nathaniel answered.

“Creepy grub things,” added Anders.

“New darkspawn? _After_ a Blight?” Sigrun’s gaze turned calculating, grief overcome, at least momentarily, by curiosity. “What could that mean?”

“Nothing good,” said Cait sourly.

The deeper underground they got, the darker Cait’s mood got with it. No matter how tall the ceilings were they felt too close; in areas where the caverns were small enough for the stone to brush the top of her head, Cait had to concentrate on remembering to breathe. There was too much earth between her and the sun. Anders tried to spark conversation, but she wasn’t much in the mood for levity and he gave up after a while.

Behind them, Nathaniel was attempting the same with Sigrun. “The Legion of the Dead must train its people well.”

Sigrun heard the compliment in his words, and shrugged it off. If the darkness of the cavern or the deaths of her comrades weighed on her, she hid it well. “Oh, they taught me a few tricks, but I was fighting long before then.”

“Oh?” He asked. “You fought in Orzammar's army?”

Sigrun sneered, but somehow made it seem friendly. “Fighting for scraps of food. For a place to sleep. For survival.”

“Oh, I... I didn't mean…” Nate sounded so dismayed, and Cait cringed inwardly.

“It's all right,” Sigrun said with a grin and another shrug. “You're a noble.”

“So are _you_ ,” Cait couldn’t resist adding. “for the record. The Legion is a noble house now.”

“Huh. You know, I never thought of that.” She looked at Cait as if searching for something, thought she had no idea what. “I heard a Warden was responsible for that. Was that you?”

“It was,” she said plainly.

“You know, most of the Legion were born casteless. I bet that really grinds the gears of those Assembly bastards.” Sigrun’s smile turned wistful.

Cait smirked a little at the thought, too. “Probably. If they’re anything like human nobles, it doesn’t take much to piss them off.”

“Are you noble too?”

She shrugged. “My parents were.”

Sigrun laughed, a pleasant and musical sound. “But you don’t think of yourself as one?”

“I… guess not.” Cait didn’t know when she’d stopped thinking of herself that way. What the dividing line between ‘Lady’ and ‘Warden’ had been. The Landsmeet, maybe? As far back as Ostagar? “Not anymore. I hold a title, but it’s just semantics. I’m a soldier with an honorific, not a noble with a sword.” Maker, she sounded like Loghain. When had she gotten so _old_?

“Wait a minute,” Anders said, holding up a hand. “So you’re a disgraced noble turned Grey Warden.”

“Yes.”

“And so is Nathaniel.”

“Yes…?”

“And Loghain.”

“Right.”

“And technically, Oghren was too. And the king is a Grey Warden turned noble?”

“Is there a point to this, Anders?”

“How do I become a noble too? I feel left out of the club.”

Cait laughed, and the weight in her chest felt a little lighter. “My brother is single. Recently widowed.”

“Is he as pretty as you?” Anders asked with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Few are,” Nate whispered fondly.

“Braggart.” Anders rolled his eyes. “Andraste’s flaming tits, you two are _awful_.”

\-------

Kal’Hirol was surprisingly well-preserved, all things considered. Huge and solid and likely still functional. Its traps and golems certainly still worked. Almost every tile on the floor of its entrance hall was a pressure plate or snare of one flavor or another, and Cait, Nathaniel, and Sigrun spent nearly an hour disabling them before they could safely move on.

The next room, of course, contained ghosts.

“Someday,” said Cait, staring at the ghostly dwarves locked in eternal combat. “ _Someday_ I’m going to be able to walk into some place that isn’t haunted.”

“Attagirl, Cait,” Anders laughed. “Dream big! Arguably the most powerful woman in Ferelden, you could ask for anything you wanted in the world and all you ask for is ‘less ghosts, please!’”

“The Vigil isn’t haunted,” Nathaniel mused quietly. “Is it?”

“We fought undead and ash wraiths in the basement,” Cait deadpanned.

“Oh. Right.”

These, at least, seemed harmless - or at least not actively trying to do them harm - so they kept moving. Not far past the first room full of ghosts they found an empty, unhaunted, and easily barricaded room to rest in. They had no idea how late it was, but the climb down to and fight through Kal’Hirol had been long, and Sigrun was clearly exhausted and still injured, no matter how much she tried to hide both.

“I _hate_ the Deep Roads,” Cait muttered sourly. She stared out over their campsite. Crumbling ruins and endless dark tunnels, dust and blood and darkspawn taint. She could feel the thousand pounds of dirt and stone above their heads pressing down on her. “When I say ‘I've slept in worse’ _this_ is what I mean.”

“You hate the Fade, you hate the Deep Roads, you hate politics and hate that people consider you a hero,” Anders ticked each point off on his fingers as he spoke. “Is there anything you actually _like_ about being a Grey Warden?”

“The company,” Cait said dryly. “The pay isn't bad either.”

Cait dug through her little bag of keepsakes and found a mabari crunch for Byron. She gave him the treat and he lay down next to her. He hated the Deep Roads too, poor thing.

She also found the betrothal ring from Blackmarsh. She'd almost forgotten about it. It glittered dully even in the lightless cave. She felt that same strange twist in her gut as she stared at it - something like longing, maybe, or envy? - but she didn't let herself dwell on it. She shook her head and shoved it back in the bag.

“Why _did_ you become a Grey Warden?” Anders asked, continuing the thread from before. If he'd noticed her momentary lapse in attention, he didn't comment.

“I wasn’t given a choice. Same as you, I guess. I’m sorry about that.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I had a death sentence either way. At least this way there's more time between sentencing and execution. Less solitary confinement too.”

Cait cringed and brought her knees up to her chest. She hated how defeated he sounded. How could the other generations of Wardens stand this? Building a family and knowing that, best case scenario, you'd all go die horrific deaths together and be forgotten in some dark tunnel? Why did they even need the darkspawn taint when it wasn't a Blight?

Maybe there was another way; the thought appeared in her mind as if planted there by someone else. She thought of Avernus, living 200 years in that tower by himself. The Calling had never come for him. If he could use blood magic to control the taint, could he cure it entirely?

Thoughts for another day. Deal with the present first. The future would be there when she had time to think about it - or it wouldn't, and she wouldn't care either way.

Anders was staring at her. She wondered what he'd said that she'd missed. “Sorry,” she muttered, “Deep Roads make me maudlin, I think.”

“Are you claustrophobic?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she said emphatically, “I don't like being trapped. Caged. Neither do you, I imagine.”

He just smirked, a humorless tilting of one corner of his mouth.

Nathaniel sat down next to her and she leaned against him. She saw Anders’ smile become something kinder, fonder, before he hid it behind another bite of dinner. “So what was your last trip to the Deep Roads like?” Anders asked.

“Oghren hasn't told you that story yet? He loves to tell that one.”

They turned as one toward Oghren, but all he had to say on the matter was a loud, rasping snore. “At least one of us will get some sleep tonight,” Nathaniel muttered.

Anders pointed toward Cait's bedroll where Sigrun slept, sprawled on her back and silent in her sleep. “Dwarves.”

Sigrun had offered to take a watch tonight, but Cait had shut her down. She'd been awake for three days, fighting darkspawn almost nonstop, and Cait had still almost had to strap her down to get her to rest.

“She'll be dead within the week if we leave her here,” Nate said, keeping his voice low.

“I know. I'm going to offer her the Joining.” She pried her eyes away from the sleeping Legionnaire. “But I believe you were fishing for a story.”

The next day - assuming it was even day - brought with it more talking darkspawn and a confirmation that their theory was true.

“I’ll be a nug’s uncle,” Oghren muttered. “An actual sodding darkspawn civil war.”

There was nothing else it could be. There were two clear sides fighting against each other. The floor was littered with bodies of darkspawn already slain. There must have been a hundred or more here when the fight started, and now the dozen or so remaining stood on top of their dead while still brutally cutting into the others.

“What do we do?” Sigrun asked, shifting restlessly, itching to jump in.

“Pick off the stragglers. Whichever side wins dies here anyway,” Cait said coldly.

“Yes, Commander,” Sigrun grinned and rushed forward, Oghren at her heels.

\-------

They left Kal’Hirol with new information and a lot of injuries. But they were all alive, and a side door out of the lower levels led them to a long, steep path with sunlight at the end of it.

“So. The Architect. Doesn’t sound much like the other darkspawn names,” Anders said. He leaned heavily on Cait as they made their way toward the surface. He was completely spent on mana. Another talking darkspawn - The Lost, possibly? He hadn’t been as forthcoming as previous encounters, but she remembered one of the others calling him that - had pitted them against a giant fire golem, and it had broken four of Cait’s ribs and Oghren’s right arm and leg, as well as grabbing Nathaniel by the shoulder and practically branding the shape of its hand into his flesh. Anders was likely the only reason any of them were alive; he was certainly the reason they were able to keep moving now. Cait would make sure to get him something nice next time she was in the city.

“No, it doesn’t,” Cait huffed, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible. “Blight and damnation, every time I learn something new all I end up with are more questions. This Architect and The Mother are not going to like what I have to say to them when I finally catch up to them.”

Anders grinned, too tired to laugh. “Not going to invite the darkspawn to tea at the Vigil, then? I was looking forward to it, too. I love those little fancy cakes.”

“I will get you all the fancy cakes you can eat. Straight from Orlais.” She squeezed his shoulder, the closest thing to a hug she could manage with her mangled ribs. “Even some of those tiny sandwiches.”

Sigrun marched up beside them, half-dragging Oghren behind her. "So you’re going to go after this Architect, the one who’s making all the smart darkspawn?”

Cait nodded. “I am. Want to come?”

Sigrun stopped, startled, then jogged to catch up. “Come with you? As in… be a Grey Warden? Is that allowed? Can you be both part of the Legion and a Grey Warden?”

“You’ll still fight darkspawn, and die doing so.” Cait hoped she didn’t sound too bitter when she added, “Disappear into the deep, unmourned and forgotten, as you said.”

Sigrun laughed. “How can I say no when you put it like that? All right. I’ll follow you, Commander.”

When they stepped back out above ground, Cait fought hard to resist the urge to lay in the grass and stare up at the cloudy sky. She did, however, take several deep, grounding gulps of fresh air, ignoring the creak of her newly repaired ribs.

Anders was right next to her doing the same thing. “Maker, that was _awful_. Not the worst thing I've ever done, but still just terrible.”

“What was the worst?” She leaned against a rock while they waited for the others. “And don't say solitary confinement, because _obviously_ that was worst.”

“I stowed away on a ship headed for somewhere in the Free Marches once. Ostwick, maybe, or Starkhaven. I don't remember.” He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Regardless, I didn’t realize until I was already on board that the cargo was fish. I spent a week up to my eyeballs in dead fish, and the templars were waiting for me when we hit land. They didn't let me bathe until we got back to the tower.” He shuddered at the memory. “Ugh. What's your worst? And don't say ‘two weeks in the Deep Roads’ you've already played that card.”

“I spent a few days imprisoned in Fort Drakon.” She tried to sound casual about it, moreso when Nathaniel emerged from the tunnel, walking under his own power but holding his left arm stiffly at his side.

“Fort Drakon? Are you serious? What did you do to earn that?” Anders asked.

“I murdered Arl Rendon Howe,” Cait said, very carefully not looking at Nate as she did. He would have probably heard this sooner or later, but she didn’t want to see the moment he started hating her again. “Also I became the political enemy of Ferelden's greatest general, but the official reason was that I broke into the arl's estate and killed him in cold blood.”

“Did you?”

“Oh, yes.” She laughed humorlessly. “I could make a lot of excuses about it. He had kidnapped Queen Anora and I was there on a rescue mission. He attacked me first. But the fact of the matter is, I went to that house to kill him, and I did.”

Nathaniel’s uninjured hand settled between her shoulder blades, a familiar and comforting point of contact, and Cathain released the breath she’d been holding.

“How did you get out of jail?” Anders asked.

“A very, _very_ convoluted break-in by my friends involving impersonating Chantry sisters, if what they say is true. Oghren would know more than I would about that,” she said as the dwarf in question joined them. “I guess it’s important to have perspective.”

“If I didn’t have perspective, I’d still be sitting in a templar dungeon drooling on my smallclothes.” Anders rested his chin on the top of her head and threw an arm around Nate. It was so casual and comfortably familial and Cait was almost too busy musing on that to notice the warm rush of healing magic that coursed through them at the points of contact. She took a deep and barely-painful breath and tried not to be mad at her friend for exhausting himself so much for her sake. It was just another thing she owed him.

"A related question,” Anders said, his pointy chin digging painfully into her head as he spoke, “What do Grey Wardens do when there aren’t darkspawn running amok? I mean, are there parties? Do we travel the world? Take over small kingdoms?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?” Cait said. She shrugged as much as she could under the combined weight of Anders and Nathaniel. “We can do whatever we want. When we aren’t fighting darkspawn, we’re just… people.”

“That sounds like fun,” he said softly. “I’ve never been just a person before. Neither have you, I bet.”

“We can still have parties, though.” She smiled. “And I’ve always wanted to take up gardening.”

“I think I’ll learn how to knit.”

Now that they were above ground again, Cait felt so _tired_ ; it was early afternoon, but she could close her eyes right now and sleep until morning. She groaned and pushed her way out of the pile of exhausted bodies and back onto her feet. “Come on. Let’s try and at least get back to the road before we rest, otherwise we’ll never get home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't have a romance with an archer without a "teaching their partner how to use a bow" scene, it's a law somewhere I think. also, in-game Cait had points in literally everything but archery so bad-with-bows had to be canon for her :)


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They didn't get much farther than making it out of the hills and back to the comfort of woodland and solid ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry folks, ran a little late getting this up because of the holiday weekend

They didn't get much farther than making it out of the hills and back to the comfort of woodland and solid ground. They found the same site they'd used two nights prior and Cait coaxed the extinguished campfire back to life.

She then laid out Anders’ bedroll and shoved him toward it. “Go to sleep.”

“What? No!” He planted his feet to stop their momentum, but Cait was stronger than he was and he was still way too skinny.

"Anders, you are swaying on your feet. You have done more work in the last day than the rest of us combined and you're going to kill yourself trying to keep us alive." She held his face in both of her hands, trying to appeal to him as a friend so she wouldn't have to make it an order from his commanding officer. "Sleep. I'll wake you when dinner's ready."

She sent Justice out to forage after giving him a brief description of a few plants that should be both edible and nearby. He looked excited at the prospect of putting his new knowledge to the test. Sigrun volunteered to patrol in case any darkspawn had also made their way back to the surface; Cait agreed, figuring it would also help her acclimate to being above ground, but sent Byron with her in case she got lost.

She sat down with a grunt and looked over Nathaniel and Oghren. Both of them were trying unsuccessfully to look hale enough to work. “How’s your leg?” she asked Oghren.

“Nothing a few drinks and a good night’s sleep can’t fix,” he grumbled. Cait raised an eyebrow at him and he added, “Really! The kid does good work. For a man in a dress.”

She studied him a little longer, but he wouldn’t give her more than that. “Fine. Can you gather firewood? We have some left from last time we were here, but it’s not enough for the night.”

“Yes, Commander,” Oghren said happily. He walked away slowly, but very conspicuously did not limp.

Cait turned her scrutiny to Nathaniel. “Can you hold a bow?”

He rolled his right shoulder and winced, then went back to holding his arm as still as possible. “I think even _you’d_ be a better shot than I would right now.”

“I will be gracious and assume you weren’t trying to insult me.” She tried to laugh, but her ribs protested. “Help me set up camp. Between the two of us, we should be able to get it done.”

She reached for their tent to start setting it up, but Nate stopped her with a very light hand on her side. “How are you?”

Cait took as deep a breath as she was able and let it out in a slow sigh. “Bruised, but not broken. I owe Anders a lot.”

Nate smiled in the direction of the sleeping mage. "We all do. Can I see?"

"Later." She pushed his hand away gently. "When we go to bed, you can spend all the time you’d like admiring what I’m sure must be a hideous bruise."

It took twice as much time as normal, but between the two of them Cathain and Nathaniel manage to get the camp set up and sleepable by the time the others returned. Justice had found some wild parsnips, spring onions, and a rosemary bush, and combined with some of the dried meat they had in reserve, it made one of the better camp stews Cait had had in recent memory. Justice did a very bad job of hiding how pleased he was when she complimented him on the meal.

Sigrun looked around the camp, counting the tents on her fingers. “So where do I sleep? I can’t help but notice there are only four tents, but six of us.”

“Oh, you can have my tent.” Cait pointed at the tent in question. “And Justice doesn’t sleep, so he insists he doesn’t need one.”

“Then where do you sleep?”

“I share with Nathaniel,” she said carefully. She doubted the Legion of the Dead had much problem with fraternization, but Nate was technically still Cait’s subordinate and she wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

She didn't get one. Instead Sigrun turned to look at Nate, sizing him up like a cow at a meat market. “Not bad. If you like ‘em grumpy. And human.”

"I’ve been told I have a type," Cait said dryly.

Sigrun winked at her. "Archers. I get it." Cait startled. That wasn't what people normally said, but… well, thinking about it, she wasn't wrong. Sigrun continued, low and conspiratory, "Good shoulders. They’re usually too self-controlled for my taste, but I can see the appeal." She sighed wistfully. She seemed much more relaxed above ground than Cait had expected. "Give me a tall girl with a big axe any day."

Cait laughed and it only barely hurt her ribs this time. "I’ll keep that in mind while I’m recruiting."

She volunteered for first watch, knowing if she laid down it would be a pain in the ass to try and sit back up. She wasn’t surprised when Nathaniel volunteered to watch with her - if he was asleep when she came to bed, he wouldn’t be able to properly fret over her injuries - but she was surprised when Justice asked not to.

“I would like to take a walk,” he said in the gentlest voice she’d ever heard from him. “Aura and Kristoff once spent time together in these woods. I would like to know them for myself and see how they match up to what I see of his memories.”

"Why didn’t you do that when we stopped here before?"

"I could not rest while there was justice to be done," he said simply, like that was just a thing people said.

"Take as long as you’d like," Cait said.

"I will be back in time for second watch," Justice nodded, a controlled and deliberate movement of his head, and then he disappeared into the trees.

"Does anyone else think it sounds like a bad pickup like when he says things like that?" Anders said with a tired grin. "Submit yourself to justice! There is justice to be done!"

"You are terrible."

"I know. It’s part of my charm. Well, I’m going back to bed. Wake me up when it’s my turn to watch." He pressed a loud kiss to the top of Cait's head. "Good night, Caitie."

She didn't correct him, but he didn't seem to notice. "Good night."

And then it was just Cait and Nate and Byron and the crickets in the deepening twilight. He sat across the fire from her instead of next to her like he normally did. She missed having him close, but her abused ribs were thankful for the distance.

"Why are you still carrying this around?" Nathaniel asked, holding up a familiar, green-gemmed ring.

Cait reached for her valuables pouch, but she knew the ring would be missing from it. "You _thief_! You dirty pickpocket!"

"I saw you eyeing it last time we stopped." He eyed her as he said that, curious and calculating in equal measure. "And you didn't answer my question."

"I… don't know," she said quietly, staring into the fire in contemplation. "It didn't seem right to get rid of it, but it seemed wrong to wear it too. It wasn't meant for me."

"Do you want one meant for you?"

"What?" Cait straightened up so quickly that her ribs creaked.

"Do you want to get married?" Nathaniel asked again. 

He looked so sweet and sincere and Cait couldn't help but tease him a little. "Are you proposing? Because that's a bit sudden."

"No!" The panic in his voice made her feel a little better about her own racing heart. He cleared his throat and continued, "Not yet. I was just wondering. It's not something we ever really talked about. _Before_."

"I never really thought about it before." She paused and thought about it now. She smiled slyly. "Someday. Maybe. If the right person comes along."

They shared a look that left Cait feeling warm and then silence took the camp. She let her mind wander down the paths their discussion had opened up for her. Byron laid down next to her, wiggling and whining until she gave into his demands and rubbed his belly.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she spoke again. "It's been a long time since I've thought about the future."

Nate chuckled. "Sometimes in the Free Marches, all I had was thoughts of the future. Enough that I would lose track of the present."

Cait stared at the ring still glittering in Nathaniel's hand. "I expected I'd be dead by 25. Or in a political marriage, which is almost the same thing."

" _Fergus_ married for love," he pointed out.

"Fergus eloped while campaigning in Antiva. Oriana was already with child by the time he came home with her." She ignored the pain in her chest that she always got when she thought of Oren and Oriana. She talked over it stubbornly until it went away. "I thought being a Grey Warden was a death sentence. More so after Ostagar. I've read the stories. The hero that ends the Blight never survives."

“But you did.” He was studying her again. He looked sad - or maybe she was just projecting.

“I cheated. Old magic and very loyal friends.”

He waited for her to say more, but she didn't know where to start. How do you say ‘my friends had sex to save my life’ and not make it sound like the craziest blighted thing ever?

Eventually, Nate let the subject drop and went back to the other one. “Did you have a lot of offers for political marriages?”

“A few.” Cait watched his face, but there was no trace of jealousy. “Bann Teagan, Bann Loren's son Dairren. Thomas.”

He recoiled from her words like they struck him, then cringed when it jostled his injured shoulder. “Thomas my _brother_? Are you serious?”

She giggled and nodded. “It was your father's idea. Thomas was as against it as I was, if it helps.”

“It does. A _little_.” He made a face like he’d bitten into a lemon. “Maker's blood, not even in my worst nightmares did I consider that I could come home to find you'd married my little brother.”

Cait looked around the camp, at the quiet woods that were barely an hour of travel away from the Deep Roads. It felt rather like a metaphor for her life. “I keep expecting the ground to open up and take this away from me,” she whispered. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling exposed.

Nathaniel finally walked around the fire and sat next to her. “We just spent two days in a hole where the ground literally opened up and swallowed us. I'm still here. We all are.”

She wished she had someone here she could ask advice from. Delilah, Leliana, Mother. Even Morrigan, though Cait knew her advice would be terrible. She’d spent nearly two years trying to shut this part of herself down, but it was a slipshod dam at best and Nathaniel knew better than anyone how to dismantle it. It felt like too much; she’d spent a decade in a drought and now it wouldn’t stop raining.

Nate found her hand and squeezed it. “I’m going to give you - give _us_ the future we deserve,” he said, gentle but resolute. “It’ll be happy and safe and quiet if I have to personally kill every single darkspawn in Thedas to make it happen.”

“Romantic gestures were a lot less complicated when we were teenagers,” Cait said with a grin. She lifted his hand to her lips, the only bit of physical affection she knew she could manage at the moment without hurting one of them. It would do.

She untied her bag from her belt and placed it in his hand. “So did you find anything else interesting while you were rooting through my belongings?”

“I didn't--”

“You did,” she interrupted, but she smiled as she said it. “But it's okay. It's mostly sentimental nonsense, anyway.”

And it was. The necklace she'd been given after her Joining, another she'd gotten from the Gauntlet. Her father's signet ring. A dried sprig of Andraste's Grace. A delicate golden necklace that she'd found around her neck when she woke up after the archdemon's death. The friendship bracelet Delilah had made her when they were ten.

He pulled out a crown, simple and utilitarian in design and made of silverite. Cait covered her mouth to muffle her giggles at the sight of it. “Maker, I forgot I had that.”

“Why do you have a crown?” Nathaniel asked as he did what everyone always did when they found it: he put it on his head. It was a little too big on him, but he carried it well.

Cait considered for a moment before deciding honesty was the best policy. “Have you heard of the Dark Wolf?”

He shrugged his good shoulder. “Rumors and hearsay. It was a thief that plagued noble houses in Denerim for a few weeks. Disappeared without a trace after the Landsmeet.”

“That was me.”

“What? Caitie--”

“For the record,” she spoke over whatever he was going to follow that with, “I only took things from your father and Loghain. Well, and Bann Franderel, but he had it coming. That,” she pointed at the crown, “was supposed to be Loghain's. It was made for him to wear to the Landsmeet, since he was king-regent at the time. Very dramatic, I’m sure he hated it. I nicked it from his seneschal while he was drunk.”

“And you call me a pickpocket,” Nate said fondly.

“Takes one to know one.”

They didn’t talk much after that, just sat there in the dark, hands linked and knees pressed together and enjoying each others presence. By the time Justice returned to camp, a serene smile on his skeletal face, Cait was barely able to keep her eyes open. As soon as Sigrun stepped out of her tent to join the watch, she said her good nights and went straight to bed.

Nate helped her undress and she did the same for him. Her bruises were even worse than she'd imagined; her entire side was mottled red and purple and sickly yellow, and she was surprised it didn't hurt more than it did, that she was able to breathe at all under all of that.

Nathaniel's burn thankfully wasn't hand-shaped like she’d assumed it would be, but it still stretched from his collarbone to his upper arm and over his shoulder blade almost to his spine. Anders’ magic made it look a lot less like a fresh wound, but it was still pink and raw and would definitely scar. 

She settled her hands over the hard planes of his abdomen, allowing herself that contact while keeping it far away from any injuries. His fingers threaded into her hair and she knew he was thinking the same thing. 

It took a long time to find a position they could both sleep in comfortably, but fatigue from the last few days caught up to them and dragged them under as soon as settled down.

\-------

The next day, Sigrun and Justice got their first experience with true Amaranthine rain. Warm and heavy and relentless, it drowned their campfire and soaked through their cloaks and armor before they'd even had breakfast. By mid-afternoon, it was enough to dampen even Cait's spirits, for all that she normally loved the rain.

The rain lasted the entire five days back to the Vigil. They traveled in the deeper woods to hide from the worst of it under the canopy, but it was still a long, miserable slog. They stacked their tents on top of each other and all huddled together under them to stay dry enough to sleep, and they ate mage-fire charred rabbits and birds since they couldn't maintain a campfire.

By the time they walked through the gates at Vigil's Keep, Cait never wanted to see another drop of rain again. She missed quiet, and privacy, and dry clothes. Even though every day was almost unseasonably warm, she was still shivering, and Anders' magic was likely the only reason she wasn't sick.

The main hall was full of people when they arrived. Cait worried at first that she'd stumbled into another unannounced meeting of the court - and wouldn't they just _love_ that, with her doing her best drowned rat impression - but she realized quickly how many friendly and familiar faces there were.

She had a sudden face-full of silky red hair. It smelled like flowers. "You'll get your dress wet," Cait said and tried to push away, a superficial bit of protest, but the strong arms around her held steady.

"Oh, hush, and let me hug my friend," She could hear the smile in Leliana's voice. "I missed you."

Cait gave in and wrapped herself around the smaller woman. "It's good to see you."

"It is good to see you too. You look well, if perhaps a little damp." Leliana laughed musically.

A heavy, armored hand fell on her shoulder and Cait knew whose it was before she pulled out of Leliana’s arms. Loghain was very deliberately not smiling, but she could still see it in his eyes. 

“Commander,” he said quietly.

“General,” she replied warmly. She had no qualms about smiling in public like he did. “I’m going to hug you now.”

“I suppose that would be amenable,” he grumbled, but he still reached for her first.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Cait whispered, and he squeezed her a little tighter. Her bruised ribs protested. She ignored them. “Keeping the Orlesians in line?”

Loghain chuckled, barely audible against her sodden armor. “As well as you’re keeping the darkspawn in line, if what I hear is correct.”

“Oh come on, they can’t be _that_ bad,” she said, but she was laughing as she pulled away.

“I guess you’ll see for yourself,” he muttered in her ear as he stepped away and gestured at a man standing off to the side, waiting stone-faced for them to finish their reunions.

The man stepped forward and saluted crisply. He had a very impressive mustache and a very serious frown underneath it. “An honor to meet you, Warden-Commander. I am Jean-Marc Stroud. I have been serving as… intermediary at Soldier’s Peak, but I felt it was time I introduced myself to you formally.”

She wracked her brain for what she knew of Stroud. Marcher Warden, or possibly Orlesian but working primarily in the Free Marches. He was a scout, or maybe a recruiter, if she remembered correctly; she vaguely recalled reading his name and thinking he should be doing her job.

She returned his salute. “The honor is mine, Ser Stroud. I hope you enjoy your stay in Amaranthine.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Stroud said. He didn’t add anything else, just watched her blankly, so she turned away from him and back to her soggy companions.

“Go get dry and warm. You have the rest of the day to spend however you wish, I’ll see you at dinner. Varel,” she called and the seneschal appeared at her side as if coalescing from thin air. “Please find a room for Sigrun and prepare the Joining.”

“As you say, Commander,” Varel said, disappearing as suddenly and silently as he had appeared, Sigrun in tow. Stroud bowed and left as well.

The rest of them wandered off toward their own rooms, except Nathaniel. “Nate, at least go change clothes,” she murmured. “I don't want you getting sick.”

“I will when you do,” he growled.

“Stubborn. Hardheaded lout,” she said fondly.

“Flatterer.”

“So Caitie,” Leliana said, voice innocent and saccharine sweet.

Cait closed her eyes. "Blight it all, I'm not ready for this," she mumbled.

"Aren't you going to introduce us to your _friend_?"

She took a deep breath, then grabbed Nate’s hand and tugged him forward. “Leliana, Loghain, meet Nathaniel Howe. Nathaniel, this is Loghain Mac Tir and Leliana.” She hoped she didn't sound overly hostile. She loved her friends, she did, she just really didn't want to do this particular introduction while she was dripping on the stone floor. Loghain gave her a commiserating look, but they both knew there was no stopping Leliana.

“Nice to meet you,” Nathaniel said, very properly. “Caitie speaks highly of you both.” He took Leliana’s offered hand and bowed over it, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. Cait rolled her eyes at the formality of it all.

Over his head, Leliana and Cait had a conversation entirely in pointed looks and raised eyebrows. _Is this him?_ asked Leliana. _Please don’t be weird_ , begged Cait.

“Oh, you are _that_ Nathaniel,” Leliana said slyly. “Caitie speaks _very highly_ of you too.”

“Maker preserve me,” Cait whispered.

Nate thankfully didn’t respond and turned instead to hold his hand out to Loghain, who shook it firmly.

“You’re Rendon’s oldest, aren’t you?” Loghain asked.

“I am.” Nathaniel’s face went immediately blank. He tensed like he was about to be hit.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Loghain said softly, “and for the part I played in his downfall.”

“He had it coming,” was all Nate said in response.

“That’s what I’m sorry for.” They studied each other for a quiet moment, but Cait couldn’t read what passed between them. “He talked about you a little. Mentioned he was thankful you were still in the Free Marches. He seemed to think if you were here, you’d side with ‘the Cousland girl’ over him.”

Nathaniel looked at Cait out of the corner of his eye and the serious look on his face washed away under a warm smile. “He was probably right.”

Yes,” Loghain said, one corner of his mouth shifting enough that it could be called a smile. “So I see.”

\-------

By the time Cait got the chance to change, her clothes were mostly dry anyway. She still scrubbed at her skin with a soft cloth to get rid of the cold, stiff feeling left behind on her skin by the rain, then found something clean to wear.

She'd just finished getting dressed when someone knocked on her door. "It's open!"

Nathaniel stepped inside and leaned against the door. He watched her in silence as she moved about the room.

“Sigrun survived the Joining,” she said, her back to him as she unpacked her bags to let their contents dry out. “She’s resting now.”

She could hear the relief in his voice. “Good. She seemed ready to join her comrades in death, but I hope she doesn’t get the opportunity for a long time.”

Nate stayed at the door as Cait kept working. She piled all her soggy clothes on the floor at the end of the bed. “I wonder what my mother must think,” she mused, mostly to herself, “of her only daughter spending so much of her time wearing men’s clothes. I only own two dresses, you know. Leliana bought them for me when we were in Denerim. I expect she’ll try to rectify that while she’s here.”

“I don’t think she’d care." He walked slowly across the room to her as he spoke. "I think she’d be more concerned with how much time you have to spend in armor. How little sleep you get. The knife you keep under your pillow." He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. "The kind of men you let into your bed.”

Cait leaned back against his chest. "Mmm, and what kind is that?"

"Pickpockets," he growled against her neck, "Grey Wardens."

"Howes?"

He laughed, low and wicked. "That too. Do you have more work to do or are you just trying to look busy?"

"I really do need to finish unpacking before my stuff starts to mildew." Her travel gear took up over half the bed. It wouldn't be usable, for sleep or anything else, until she moved it. "Otherwise I’m free for the next few hours."

"Good." He spun her around and pressed her against the door.

She gripped his shirt and used it to pull him closer until he was all she could see. "Something on your mind?" she asked coyly.

"Two weeks," he growled, pressing closer still. "Two weeks of sleeping next to you and keeping my hands to myself. Another day away and I might have gone mad."

"Hey, it's your rule, not mine." She licked her lips just for the pleasure of watching him drop his eyes to follow the movement. "There's enough room in our tent that we could have made it work."

He threaded his fingers into her hair, tilting her head back. "I don't think you can keep quiet enough for that. Might as well get rid of the tent entirely, they'd know what we were doing anyway."

"These walls are not soundproof. They already know what we're doing." She tugged on his shirt, trying to drag him down to her, but he didn't budge. "I can be quiet when I need to."

"Prove it."

She stepped around him and pushed him against the door instead. She kissed him before he could protest.

They never made it to the bed. They barely made it out of their clothes, too desperate for each other to bother with finesse or to take it slow. Cait managed to keep quiet, if only barely, burying her face into Nate’s scarred shoulder to muffle any noises she couldn’t silence.

After, Nathaniel carried her to the bed and she threw all her half-sorted belongings to the floor and they laid there wrapped up together until their heartbeats slowed. 

Cait giggled breathlessly. "Is this what I can expect every time we come home from traveling? Because a girl could get used to this."

"Probably." His hand traveled her side, tracing the still healing bruise. It no longer hurt, but it was still ugly and mottled. "Or we could just stay home and do this every night."

"You do make a very compelling argument." Cait sighed contentedly. "How long do you think we have until dinner?"

"Another hour, maybe."

"Good. Good." She pressed closer to him. "I just need a little more time away from it before I have to go be a hero again. And this is definitely better than hiding in a tree."

He only held her tighter. She knew he’d stay in this bed with her as long as she needed to. Quietly, he said, “Do you ever wish things were different?”

“Sometimes. Besides the obvious, like wishing my family wasn’t dead or that I didn’t have horrible nightmares caused by a poison in my blood that is slowly killing me.” Cait said it like it was a joke, but neither of them were laughing. 

She propped her head up on her hand so she could see his face. “I almost ran away with you, you know. When you left. I don’t think I ever told you that. Thomas talked me out of it. He was convinced that your father sent you away when he did because of me.”

Nathaniel thought about it for a second. “Maybe there’s some truth to that. It was less than a month before your eighteenth birthday, wasn’t it?”

“Two and a half weeks,” she said with a nod. “He was worried that your father would… retaliate somehow. Sabotage us, or your squiredom, or use it to drive a wedge between our families. Looking back at it now, I’m pretty sure he was right.”

“It’s more insightful than I would have expected from Thomas.” His eyes were distant; thinking about his brother, most likely.

“He liked to be underestimated.” Cait thought about Thomas too. He had been an almost obscenely attractive man, the kind that turned heads everywhere he went, and he’d known how to leverage it from a very young age. He was a troublemaker, always willing to go along with whatever ridiculous scheme Cait could think up, and between the two of them they could always talk their way out of it. He was a bit of a drunken cad, but he saw everything that happened around him; he could have made a good bard if he’d been born in Orlais. “I miss him.”

“Me too.”

Thomas had died a hero, in the end, protecting civilians from darkspawn in the Pearl in Denerim. He wouldn’t want them lamenting him like this - especially not while they were naked and in bed. Cait took a deep breath and let it out in a huff, clearing his ghost from the room. “I thought I'd never see you again when I let you leave like that.”

“I knew we’d see each other again.” Nathaniel brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I was always going to come back to you. I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“Nate, I--” she started, but the words caught in her throat and wouldn’t come out. Four blighted letters should not be so hard to say. She kissed him instead, soft and sweet, hoping that he heard them even if she couldn’t say them. He responded in kind and she knew that he did.

They were late to dinner. Anders grinned knowingly at Cait as she slid into the seat next to him. “Get lost, Caitie?”

“If you ask me what we were doing, I’m going to tell you in detail,” she threatened under her breath.

“Promises, promises,” he whispered back, but he dropped the subject.

“Can we just get down to business, _please_?” said Loghain over the din of conversation, taking the focus away from Cait and Nathaniel and reminding her why he was one of her favorite people in Thedas. “Your letters have been very vague. What’s this about a darkspawn civil war?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the things I always wished in Awakening was more visits from old friends. I understand why they didn't do that, but I feel like at the very least Alistair or Loghain would have been there helping against the new darkspawn. so Leliana and Loghain are here to visit for a while because they're Cait's best friends


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of conversations, during a brief respite between fights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to my cat Nixi for Ser Pounce's dialogue

“I thought this place would be bigger. Grander. The way you spoke of it, I expected a fairy tale castle covered in climbing roses.”

“Of course you did,” Cait said, picking another wildflower out of their basket and weaving the stem with the others. “You’re a romantic. Even when I said ‘Avvar fortress’ and ‘built for function over form’ all you heard was pretty things.”

“I _like_ pretty things. Like your Nathaniel,” Leliana said with a cheeky grin. “He is very handsome, isn’t he? He must take after his mother, no?”

Cait smiled as she placed her completed flower crown on Leliana’s head. “I can’t even imagine how you must have pictured Nate, the way I used to talk about him.”

“He does not quite live up to expectations, that is true.” Their eyes followed Nathaniel, over at their makeshift archery range. He was having what was probably a very dour and taciturn conversation with Loghain and Stroud. “How could he? True love makes everyone appear more magnificent than they really are.”

Cait fought the urge to roll her eyes. True love was a fairy tale. The love she felt for Nathaniel was no greater or more 'true' than the love she had for Leliana, or Fergus, or Anders; it was just a different kind. But they’d been over it before and she didn’t feel like rehashing it today. “It seems like you and our dear General have grown _close_.”

Leliana laughed her lovely, musical laugh and placed her flower crown on Cait’s head. “For someone whose job demands so much subtlety, you are not very good at it. But it is not like that. Loghain is… a friend. It is more than I expected when we met. It is enough.”

“He gave you the ‘old soldier’ speech, didn’t he?” She did a passable impression of his low, grumbling voice. "‘I’m old enough to be your father, girl. You have better things to do than waste time on an old soldier like me.’ He tried that on me too and _I_ wasn’t even romantically interested in him. But you are, aren’t you? I’m not reading that wrong?” Leliana didn’t answer, just laid her head back on Cait’s shoulder. They both stared up into the canopy of her tree. “I can see why you would be. He’s handsome enough, and charming despite his attempts not to be. Maybe because of his attempts not to be.”

“You find him handsome, do you? I suppose you would.”

Cait shrugged the shoulder that her friend wasn’t leaning on. “I have a type. I’ve learned to accept it. Do you want me to talk to him?”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Caitie,” Leliana said lightly.

Cait shook her head, then had to catch her flower crown as it slid off her head. “You didn’t. You would do the same for me.”

“Do you need me to?”

“No. Nathaniel isn’t the issue in our relationship. I’m the one holding back.” Leliana found her hand and laced their fingers together, a silent show of support. “I’m just not any good at words. I have them, in my head clear as day, but when I try to say them… nothing.”

“You do not need words to show someone you love them. These,” Leliana touched her flower crown, held up their joined hands, “are how you tell me you love me. This is how you prefer to speak to us. I understand because I love you too. He understands too. He has had much more time to learn your language.”

“Maybe, but I want to tell him in _his_ language. He’s… he’s a romantic. Like you.” Cait paused as Leliana giggled. “I know. He’s good at hiding it. I told you _none of this_ , okay?”

“Well, if it were me...” Leliana said, and Cait could hear the ideas already forming in the bard’s head. “Perhaps something big is in order. You are very good at grand gestures. I think I know a good place to start. I will help, it will be fun.”

They didn't make any real effort to get up yet, though. They'd both spent the last few months surrounded by grumpy men and it was nice to be around another woman for a while. Maybe they should get Sigrun and have a girls' night; Cait was sure the three of them could find some trouble to get into, something more fun than their usual brand of trouble.

“Mrow,” a tiny voice said from the tree above them. Cait and Leliana exchanged a glace.

“Hello…?”

“Mreep eek.”

Cait scrambled to her feet to come face to face with a tiny ginger cat on one of the low branches. It was young, in that midway growth stage where its legs and tail were all much too long for the rest of it. Maybe six months old or so. It stared at her with bright green eyes. “Hello, sweetheart. Where did you come from?”

“Eep mrrr.” She reached out a hand and the cat leaned so hard against it that it almost fell out of the tree. She picked it up gingerly and it grabbed onto her shoulders, tiny needle claws digging into her skin. It bumped its face into her chin in a friendly kitty hug.

Leliana giggled. “I see you’ve made another new friend.” She scratched the cat between its ears and Cait almost dropped it as it tried to lean into the new source of attention. “I think he is hungry, poor thing. You take care of him and I will go to my room. I have something for you. I will go get it and see you in your room later.”

After she left, Cait stared at the cat. The cat stared at her, squinting its eyes happily. “I think I know exactly what to do with you, sweetheart. What do you think of mages?”

\-------

“Anders, are you awake?” Cait banged on his door. “I have a present for you.” As soon as the door started to open, she held up the little cat.

Anders blinked at her over the cat’s head. His hair was down around his shoulders and he was shirtless; Cait could clearly see his ribs, but he looked much healthier than he had when they’d met. He looked like he had just woke up, even though it was early afternoon.

“Moooow rrp,” said the cat, and Anders’ bleary eyes finally focused on it. He reached forward very slowly and scooped it into his arms. It smooshed its face into his.

“I found him in my tree out in the courtyard,” Cait said, grinning. Anders looked completely smitten; he barely even acknowledged she was there. “He’s yours, if you want him.”

“Mine? You mean I can keep him? Here in the keep?”

“Of course you can.” She scratched the cat on top of its head as it thoroughly inspected Anders hair; seemingly approving, it bumped its face into Anders chin again. “You’re responsible for keeping him fed and happy. If he comes near my dog, Byron will adopt him immediately and try to teach him how to be a good mabari, so maybe keep an eye on where he roams. The rest is up to you.”

Anders walked over to his bed and gently set the cat down, who curled up immediately on his pillow and closed its eyes. He then stalked back to Cait and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. “May I point out that you’re all right?”

She smiled. “Go ahead.”

“You’re all right.” He stared at the cat as it stretched out its front paws, taking up a remarkable amount of space for a half-grown kitten. “Now I guess I need to get you a nice gift, ey?”

Cait stared up at him, confused. “What? No. Of course you don’t. Why would you?”

“No one’s ever just… given me a gift before,” Anders said in the smallest voice she’d ever heard from him.

“Anders, you’re my friend.” She hugged him again. She wanted to hold him until he understood what the meant and understood that she meant it. “You’re family. This isn’t some kind of one-upmanship. If you want to think of it that way, think of it as thanks for saving my life. Or thanks for being obnoxious and pushing Nathaniel and I together again.”

He was quiet for a very long time before he nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Caitie.”

“Can I make a request, though?”

“Anything.”

“Give that cat the most ridiculous blighted name you can think of.”

Anders grinned. “I think I have some ideas.”

\-------

Her room had been empty when she returned. No Leliana, no Nathaniel, just Byron napping in the sun. She'd waited a while, but the bard had never come around, so Cait went down to the training cellar, hoping to hit things until she could think straight.

Grand gestures, Leliana had said. She could do that. She just hoped it didn't backfire.

They still hadn't set up any decent combat dummies, so Cait walked through a few basic training drills to warm up. Then she worked her way through a series of push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and lunges, just trying to work up a sweat and get her heart rate up.

“I should have known I'd find you down here,” Loghain's quiet, amused voice said behind her. “Nice to know you aren't letting yourself get complacent now that you've got a roof and a title over your head.”

“I am hiding from my emotions,” Cait said honestly, dropping from the hanging bar to land toe to toe with the former teryn.

“Would you like some company?”

She picked up a sword and shield and he grabbed a pair of daggers, switching roles to keep them both out of their comfort zones. They already knew who would win in a normal fight, after all, and they both still bore the scars from it.

Cait felt off balance, the shield much heavier and less maneuverable than she was used to. The daggers looked comically small in Loghain's large hands. 

She swung her sword, in much too wide an arc. Loghain parried easily. “So what are you hiding from?” she asked bluntly.

“They spotted a woman matching the description of the marsh witch at the border to Orlais,” he said, swinging at her but missing entirely, used to a longer blade. “Heavy with child.”

Cait paused. Whatever she had expected, it wasn't that. Loghain slapped the flat of a dagger to her shield arm and the shock of pain brought her back to the present. “Morrigan is a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. Chances are we'll never see her or her child again. We're both alive. Concentrate on that.”

He laughed dryly. “I have missed your unique brand of optimism while I've been away.” His tone changed to that of a patient instructor. Ever the general, even here. “Try switching the shield to your right arm. You're left hand dominant, you'll feel less off balance with your sword there.”

She did as he suggested, rolling her shoulders to loosen them up and adjust her footing. “You're right, that does feel better.” When she pressed the attack again, she was quicker, less clumsy.

“I've spoken at length with your Howe,” Loghain said, moving close to try and get past her guard.

Cait kept her shield resolutely between them. “He has a name, you know.”

He smiled a little, looking much more relaxed now that they were alone. “Yes, but you still knew who I was talking about.”

“And?”

“And I think if I'd had him at my side instead of his father, I would have had a much more successful campaign during the Blight,” he said wryly.

“If you'd had him at your side instead of his father, you and I would never have been enemies.” She swung her sword again, but was much too slow.

“Indeed.” He watched her face, easily sidestepping and ignoring her attempts at attacking. “He asked for my blessing to marry you.”

“He _what_?” Cait's sword clattered to the floor. Loghain dropped his combat stance until she picked it back up. "That's _cheating_ , Loghain," she snapped. "A low blow."

He wasn't impressed or intimidated by her display. "Maybe you shouldn't expose your weak points quite so obviously."

She finally lifted her sword again. “I--Shouldn't he have asked Fergus? He's my only living blood family.”

“Perhaps.” Loghain waited until she was clearly ready before stepping forward to harrow her again. “When's the last time you spoke with your brother?”

“The coronation,” Cait said, half-hiding behind the shield. “I see your point, I guess you would be my closest family, these days.”

“Is that what we are?”

“Aren’t we?” Loghain's expression didn't change, but there was a softness around his eyes that hadn't been there before. “So what did you tell him?”

“That he had my blessing for as long as he makes you happy. That I know several very skilled assassins if he ever stopped.” He hit her shield a certain way and her whole arm went numb. “But I assume that’s what you’re down here hiding from.”

“You assume correctly.” Loghain sliced forward with a dagger and her sword clattered to the ground again. He picked it up and handed it back. As they started over, she said, “Do you ever feel like an impostor? Like every positive thing anyone sees in you is just… window dressing? Like you’ve fooled them into thinking you’re a good person and it’s only a matter of time until you slip up and they see through it?”

“You’re too young to be so jaded, Cait,” he said, disarming her again easily. She held up her hands in surrender. “Even at your absolute worst, you’re still a better person than most. You’ll never have a normal life, but you can still have a little normalcy in it. That’s what Howe is offering you.”

He helped her unstrap her shield and stayed close, studying her with that intense stare that she found so intimidating when they first met. Maybe she still found it a little intimidating. Loghain continued, “If you don’t mind a bit of advice from someone who’s been where you are: take it. Be happy in spite of the burdens placed on you.”

“I wish you’d take your own advice,” Cait whispered.

“Cait…”

“At least take her to dinner or something, Loghain. Give her a chance.” Cait knew how petulant she sounded, but she didn’t care. “She's an amazing woman, and you'd be good for each other.”

Loghain scoffed and turned away under the pretense of putting the weapons away. “She's barely older than my daughter.” 

“Anora would absolutely be agreeing with me if she were here.” She followed him across the room, not letting him escape that easily.

“She's _Orlesian_ ,” he sneered.

“Loghain…”

He finally turned back to face her. “She deserves better than me.”

“Maybe,” Cait said plainly. “But she wants you.”

“She told you that, did she,” Loghain muttered, but he looked pleased at the thought.

Cait was pretty sure if she hugged him she'd start crying, the torrent of emotions rolling in her belly finding the only outlet they could. Instead, she laid her hand on his arm, thumb resting over a knot of scar tissue just above his elbow. He sighed, a small, frustrated sound, and found the matching scar on her arm from the same fight.

Friendship forged in blood and pain. Maybe she was good at grand gestures. Maybe Leliana understood her more than she gave her credit for.

She smiled at him, starting to finally feel calm again, and said, “Maybe it’s time for us old soldiers to stop running from the chance at a little peace.”

\-------

She ran into Leliana in the hall on the way back to her room, who held out a small box for her. "It's a gift from the Drydens. They said you would find a use for it. I think I have an idea, but let us see if we are thinking the same."

Cait opened the box and stared at its contents in awe. "I know exactly what you're thinking," she said. She pulled Leliana into a hug. "It's perfect. Thank you."

"You are so welcome."

"I actually have something for you too. Will you come with me a moment?" She grabbed Leliana's hand before she could answer and pulled her along.

They made a quick stop at Wade's forge. He was hammering out a sword, but stopped as soon as they approached, visibly grateful for the distraction. When Cait said “I have a commission for you!” in a sing-song voice, he even looked a little excited. She left the box and a down payment, as well as a promise for double the pay if he and Harren kept it secret, and then she took Leliana’s hand again and led her back inside.

Nathaniel was in her room again when they walked in. He sat at the little desk under the window, a quill in hand and Byron asleep on his feet. His hair was down and loose around his shoulders and his bow was propped up in the corner by her armor stand and it was all so unexpectedly, breathtakingly _domestic_ that Cait couldn’t help pause in the doorway and stare.

Then Leliana elbowed her in the back and Byron barked happily when he spotted her and the moment was lost. She stepped into the room, Leliana on her heels. “Sorry to bother you. We’ll be out of your hair in just a moment.”

“Cait, it’s your room,” Nathaniel chuckled. “If I didn’t want you in my hair, I could go to my own room, couldn’t I?” He grabbed her arm as she moved past and pulled her back to him. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon.” She kissed the top of his head, then squirmed free to get back on task. She found her bags in the corner by the bed and dug through until she found what she was looking for.

Cait held the green-gemmed ring out to Leliana. “I think this is supposed to be yours.”

“It’s… lovely,” Leliana said slowly, studying the ring. “What is it for, exactly?”

“A pretty thing with a sad, romantic story attached.” Cait told an abbreviated version of their trip to Blackmarsh, of the scavenger hunt with the ring and the note at the end and the villagers, trapped in the Fade for decades. “I know how cheesy this sounds, but I think I was meant to bring it to you. To tell you their story so you could carry it with you.”

Leliana grinned playfully. “You’re right. That does sound cheesy,” she said, but she put on the ring. “I hope they are together, wherever they are now.”

“That’s what I said,” Nate said softly.

“Good,” Leliana laughed. “Then I do not have to worry that Cait will get too serious and grumpy without me here.”

“You _like_ serious and grumpy,” Cait pointed out.

“I have a type. I have learned to accept it.” Leliana gave Cait a quick hug. “I should go find your General. He is likely to find something reckless to do so he doesn’t have to think about his feelings, no?”

“I can see why you and he get along so well,” Nathaniel said dryly. “So much in common.”

After Leliana left, Nate turned back to the desk and Cait tried not to go back to staring at him. She busied herself sorting through the pile of now clean and dry clothes on her bed and putting them away. A remarkable number of them weren’t her clothes.

"Do you even use your room anymore?" Cait said softly, putting another of his shirts on a hanger and putting it in the closet. "Maybe we should just move all of your stuff in here."

Nathaniel turned to look at her. "I can’t tell if you’re joking or not."

"I’m not. But we can pretend I am if you’d prefer." She gave up the pretense and walked over behind his chair and sliding her arms around his shoulders. “What’re you writing?”

“Calling in some favors from my time up north. Trying to find some information about the Architect or any historical mentions of talking darkspawn.” He leaned against her and took her hand, holding it over his heart. “The First Warden is understandably slow to share information with me, but the Wardens can’t be the only ones with records dating back that far. I know a girl in Kirkwall, Charade, who has contacts as far north as Tevinter. Told her I’d help her track someone down if she did the same for me.” He tapped the top sheet of paper and added, “This one’s to Delilah. I promised I’d keep in touch.”

“I should probably write to Fergus,” Cait said with a sigh. “He’ll ask me to come visit him. I’m not ready.”

“Have you been back to Highever at all?” He turned his chair around and pulled her close. Sitting down, he was still barely shorter than she was standing.

She shook her head. “Not since Duncan dragged me out. I just… I _can’t_.”

“I understand.” Nathaniel touched his forehead to hers. “I could go with you, if you want. Once you're ready. Assuming Fergus would even let a Howe through the gates.”

He was probably right. Cait wasn’t even sure Fergus really wanted to see her either; she knew he blamed her at least a little for the deaths of their parents, of his wife and son. As if she wouldn’t bring them back in a heartbeat if she could.

“He’ll come around,” was all she said, “sooner or later.”

“That’s more patient than I would normally expect from you,” he said.

“Yes, well, I had a good day. I’m feeling a bit generous.” She tilted his head up so she could kiss him. “Don’t worry, I plan to go back to being obtuse and difficult first thing in the morning.”

“I’d better take advantage of it while I can, then.”

\-------

She ran into Stroud in the hall the next morning on the way to breakfast. "Good morning, Ser Stroud."

"Good morning, Warden-Commander. Might I take a moment of your time?"

“Of course. Do you want to take a walk?” she gestured down the hall and fell into step next to him.

“As you wish.” He didn’t say another word until they were outside. Stroud kept his hands clasped behind his back, every movement poised and professional, and Cait found herself mimicking his posture as they walked. “You have done good work here, Commander. Especially considering the… unique circumstances surrounding your recruitment.”

She nodded her head in a small bow. “Thank you, Ser Stroud.”

“Call me Jean-Marc.”

“Only if you’ll call me Cait,” she said with a smile.

His mustache twitched. “On second thought, perhaps just Stroud will do.”

Cait laughed. “So you do have a sense of humor after all. What was it you wished to discuss?”

They turned a corner, moving farther away from the forge and the crowds in the courtyard. Stroud spoke in a hushed voice to discourage eavesdroppers. “Have you had any direct contact with this Architect?”

Cait shook her head. “No. Just minions.”

“I have been reading your reports and these confrontations you’ve been having do not seem accidental.” He pulled her to a stop behind a half-repaired wall, dark eyes somber and intense. “I think the Architect, whatever it is, is targeting you specifically.”

She thought about that for a moment. “Targeting _me_ , or targeting the Commander? Because the Commander could be anyone. If I were to walk away tomorrow and leave for… I don’t know, vacation in Antiva, would I meet talking darkspawn there or would they be the new Commander’s problem?”

Stroud’s mustache twitched again. Cait was starting to suspect he had it so people couldn’t read his expressions. “Are you planning a vacation to Antiva, Commander?”

They started walking again. “No. But if they're targeting the Commander of the Grey, the Architect has a grudge against Wardens and is just trying to cut off the snake’s head, as it were. If they're targeting me, it’s for something I’ve personally done.” She shrugged. “And since I’m not the one who killed the archdemon, I don’t know what else they could possibly want with me.”

Stroud was quiet for a long time. “I hadn’t considered that. I don’t think I like the implications either way.” A merchant cart came barreling down the road toward them, and they stepped to the side to let it past. Once it was gone, he continued, “I’m concerned about the way his subordinates keep finding you. How did they know you would go to the Blackmarsh? To Kal’Hirol?”

Cait’s blood ran cold. “You don’t think there’s a spy here, do you?”

“Not among your Wardens. I have spoken to all of them. Their loyalty is not in question. Neither is that of your seneschal,” he said, and Cait deflated with relief; she knew that her people could be trusted, but convincing a man like Stroud of that would be impossible if he’d decided otherwise. He was still talking, seemingly not noticing her momentary distraction. “I’ve heard rumors of a conspiracy against you.”

She heard what he was trying to infer. “You think Esmerelle is working for the darkspawn?”

“Or perhaps they work for her.”

“Esmerelle isn’t smart enough to be the Architect,” Cait sneered. “Unless someone hired her, too, to try and split my attention. Blight and damnation, I don’t like the connotations there, but… I’ll look into it. That would be my blighted luck, wouldn’t it?” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Stroud.”

“You are welcome, Commander.” They walked for a while in silence. “I will be heading back to the Free Marches soon, I think. You have things well in hand here.”

Cait had figured he wouldn’t be staying long, but she was surprised that she was a bit sad to see him go. Curious and knowing she might not get a chance to ask later, she asked, “What’s your job like up north?”

“Scouting, mostly. There are several places where the Deep Roads open directly to the surface, like at Kal’Hirol. We patrol to make sure the darkspawn don’t try to amass at any of them.” Stroud’s mustache twitched again. He was clearly proud of his work. “I do some recruiting as well. A lot of promising people come to and from the Marcher cities.” He paused, then added, “Perhaps I will start sending them your way instead of to Orlais.”

Cait smiled. “If I find any promising scouts, I’ll send them your way.”

“Thank you, Commander.” As they turned to head back to the keep, Stroud continued, “Sigrun in particular shows great promise, if she would be amenable. After this Architect business is concluded, of course.”

Her gut reaction was to say no, but she stopped to think about it. Even with this Architect stuff, it was pretty quiet in Ferelden on the darkspawn front. Sigrun would get bored with too much downtime between fights. She conceded, “I’ll talk to her about it. The decision would be hers ultimately.”

“Of course.” Stroud watched her closely as he said, “Lord Howe would be of considerable use as well.”

“I’m sure he would,” Cait said, fighting hard not to sound hostile. “He and I are a package deal, however.”

He huffed, a sound dangerously close to a laugh. “If I am honest, you would be a boon to my work too. A woman of your talents is wasted on paperwork. But that is not up to either of us, is it.”

“I suppose it isn’t,” she said, relaxing a little.

“Thank you for your time, and for your hospitality,” Stroud said, and after a very long pause added, “Cait.”

“The honor was mine, Jean-Marc,” Cait grinned, only tripping over his name a little. “I hope we get to work together in the future.”

“As do I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect that ring from the Blackmarsh to end up with its own story arc, but here we are
> 
> action resumes next chapter! it's gonna be a doozy


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning was full of chaos.

The next morning was full of chaos. The courtyard was full of people in various states of injury and distress and piles of broken, charred wood that had once been merchant carts. Anders and Sigrun weaved through the press of bodies, stopping at each person to apply his healing magic or one of her armload of bandages as needed. Oghren followed close behind, making sure no one gave the mage any trouble while he helped people. Nathaniel and Justice passed out blankets and tried to get a headcount.

Cait hoped they had enough room for everyone. She stood off to the side with Varel and a group of uninjured visitors. “What happened?”

"There’s something in the woods!” said a tall, thin woman with her hair in an immaculate bun.

“We were attacked. It’s like the trees all came to life!” added a stocky, red-haired man.

“They smashed all our carts and started burning all our goods! Setting people on fire! We took what we could and ran!” a short, frizzy-haired person called from the back of the assembled group.

“And where was this?” Cait called, trying to be heard as they all started speaking over each other.

“The Wending Wood,” said a dark-haired woman who had been quiet up until that point. “About a day’s travel southeast.”

“Thank you, ser.” She raised her arms, trying to draw attention to herself and calm the panicked conversation to a reasonable level. “We’ll take it from here. If you need anything and can’t find me, speak to Seneschal Varel or Lord Howe.” She indicated them as she said their names. “They speak with my authority. There should be food coming soon. If you don’t mind, could you stay here with the others while we figure out where to house you all? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Of course. Thank you, my lady.” The dark-haired woman corralled the others back toward the larger group.

As soon as they were gone, Cait turned to Varel. “I’m going to be in the war room. When the food arrives, save a ration for Anders. He’ll need it once he’s done with his work. And send Nathaniel to me once he’s done.”

He nodded, eyes scanning the crowd instead of turning to her. “As you say, your grace.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a friendly pat. “Thank you, Varel. I couldn’t do this without you.”

They didn’t really have a war room, as such. They had converted what had once been the arl’s bedroom into an office big enough for all of them to fit into when they needed to discuss business in a place more private than the main hall. There was a large, sturdy table in the center of the room, and the walls were lined with maps of Amaranthine, the Vigil, Ferelden, and Orlais, as well as scribbled notes about the Architect and the Mother, Esmerelle’s brewing usurpation attempt, and anything else they needed them on. There were a few notes near the door that they left for each other, as well, chore rotations and reminders and information that might be needed but wasn’t critical enough to bother telling in person. It was the hub of Warden activity in Amaranthine.

But that all took too long to say, so they called it the war room.

Cait pulled out a map of Amaranthine and unrolled it across the table. The Wending Wood stretched from the Blackmarsh to the road between the Vigil and Denerim, a huge, thick old growth forest. The refugees were right that it would only take about a day to reach it, but if they were unlucky they could spend weeks lost in those woods looking for whatever had attacked the merchant caravans.

The door opened and Leliana and Loghain walked in. “Hiding from the commotion, Commander?” Loghain said with a small smile as he joined her at the map. Leliana walked to her other side.

“Trying to figure out how to be in three places at once,” Cait said sourly. “I can’t go hunting tree monsters _and_ the Architect _and_ take care of a bunch of injured merchants.”

“So triage, then." Loghain leaned over the map, but it didn't hold answers for him anymore than it did for Cathain. "Figure out what’s most important and take care of it first.”

“We are here to help, Caitie," Leliana said. "Whatever you need.”

She sighed. “Then I’m afraid I’m putting you both on babysitting duty. If Stroud was right and the Architect is targeting me specifically, then chances are good I’ll run into his goons in the woods anyway, so that’s two birds with one stone. But there are a lot of people in the courtyard right now and Varel is only one man.”

The door opened again and Nathaniel walked in. He took in the three of them huddled close over the map with a quick glance as he walked over to join them. Leliana moved to stand next to Loghain so Nate could stand by Cait. “Subtle,” Cait murmured. Leliana just smiled at her.

"What if the Architect isn’t after you?" Loghain said gruffly, not letting them get off topic. "Is there a chance he’ll attack the Vigil while you’re gone?"

Cait considered that possibility. "Unlikely, but I wouldn’t rule it out." She pulled out a map of Vigil's Keep. "They can’t come in through the basement anymore, we sealed that off. I doubt they’ll try to attack the walls, even regular darkspawn are smarter than that, but if they do it’s sturdy and defensible." 

"I'd be more concerned about Esmerelle," Nathaniel said. "We still don't have enough concrete evidence against her to bar the gate if she comes calling. And it's much easier to stage a coup when half the participants are absent."

"Stroud thinks Esmerelle and the Architect might be working together," Cathain said into the speculative silence that followed Nate's statement.

"Does he," Loghain said, in a tone that told Cait he'd been thinking along the same lines. He scratched at his chin thoughtfully. "A human that can control darkspawn or a darkspawn that can reason with humans, I wonder."

"Maybe neither," Leliana said suddenly, "or both, if you want to look at it that way. How many Grey Warden bodies did you recover after the first ambush?"

"Seven," Nate said.

"Out of sixteen," Cait added. "Over half the bodies were missing. I assumed they were dragged off."

"But what if they weren't? I've seen some of the experiments Avernus conducted in his tower," Loghain said as he started pacing the length of the room, "it wouldn't be so far fetched that he could use it to… awaken darkspawn, show them how to reason."

"It also wouldn't be impossible for someone else to figure it out either," said Leliana, scribbling notes as she spoke.

"So a Grey Warden teaches darkspawn how to talk and starts sending them out to do their bidding," Nathaniel said slowly, staring unseeing at the map. "Meanwhile, they convince Esmerelle to attempt to overthrow you. Why?"

"Power." Cait hated how much this made sense, but nothing else had so far. She leaned her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. "They tell Esmerelle 'I don't want Amaranthine, I just want the Wardens.' So she gets the arling and the Architect leads both the darkspawn and the Grey Wardens in Ferelden… but to what end?"

"Ceasefire," said Nathaniel. "If you control both sides of a war, there's no more war. No more Blights."

"There has got to be a less convoluted way to end the Blights," Loghain said dryly.

"It's not the most ridiculous theory we've come up with," said Nate. "I wish it was." 

Cait scrubbed her hands over her face. "Come to Amaranthine, they said. Lead the Grey Wardens. It's always quiet right after a Blight. Plenty of time to rebuild your ranks." She sighed from the depths of her soul. "Blight it all and burn the rest, I don't get paid enough for this."

Leliana's warm hand fell onto her shoulder. "One thing at a time, no? Help the merchants, then chase your phantoms. We will hold the keep until you get back."

"You're right." Cait turned to address Nathaniel. "Want to go hunting possessed trees with me?"

"You always take me to the nicest places," he said wryly. "Can trees actually be possessed?"

"I’m afraid so." She wished she had some jewelry or her gloves on so she had something to fidget with. It helped her think. "Mostly only if the veil is very thin or if something is forcing spirits into the trees. Maybe our visit to Blackmarsh woke something up? We didn’t have any trouble when we passed through then."

"Could be," Nate said, nodding. "Or something new has moved in."

"I hope this time it doesn’t speak in rhymes," Cait muttered.

Leliana giggled. "I had almost forgotten about that! At least he was friendly."

"I suppose. I doubt I’ll just need to go acorn hunting this time, though." She looked up the twin confused looked from Loghain and Nathaniel and joined Leliana in her laughter. "Long story. I’ll tell you later."

"We had to steal an acorn from a mad old hermit so a tree that only spoke in rhyme would help us fight werewolves," Leliana said cheerfully.

"Oh. Well, when you put it that way, it makes perfect sense," Nathaniel deadpanned, surprising a chuckle out of Loghain and making Cait and Leliana laugh harder.

"Tomorrow," Cait exclaimed, trying to regain control of the conversation. "Anders will need to rest tonight after all the healing he’s doing. We’ll head out first thing tomorrow to go hunt evil trees."

\-------

Cait stood by the door to the main hall of the Vigil and watched the commotion as she waited for her fellow Wardens to get ready to leave. There were nearly thirty people in that caravan and with their voices added to the din it was nearly deafening. Cait couldn't remember ever seeing Vigil's Keep this busy, even during festivals.

"You worry too much, Commander," Loghain said as he leaned against the wall next to her. "You'll go grey before you're thirty if you keep it up."

"Is that why your hair's still dark?" She growled. "The calm and stress-free life you lead?"

He smiled humorlessly at her. "Seems like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Nightmares or relationship problems?"

"Neither, actually." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I've got a bad feeling. Something's going to happen while I'm in the woods. Maybe here, maybe there, I don't know, but _something_. It's the not knowing that's driving me mad."

"Whatever happens, we'll take care of it." He put a hand on her shoulder. "These things will regret the day they made an enemy of you. They don't know what they're in for."

Cait took a deep breath, drawing strength from the point of connection between herself and her friend, then stepped away, drawing herself to her full height. "I should go."

"Be careful on the road," he said with a terse nod. "We'll see you in a few days."

"Try to leave my home standing when I get back, General."

"I hope you asked the same of Leliana. Of the two of us, I'm not the one you need to worry about," he said, then quietly added, "Good hunting, Commander."

Cait walked away without another word to join the congregation of Wardens in a quieter corner of the courtyard. The first voice to greet her as she approached was a tiny _mrrp_ from Ser Pounce-a-Lot, who was curled up in the hood in Anders' cloak.

"I can't believe you're actually bringing that thing on the road with us," Sigrun said, staring at the tiny, happy face sticking out of the cloth.

"Maybe we can use it as a distraction," said Oghren, adjusting a strap on his armor. "The darkspawn will be too busy eating it to fight back."

"Don't listen to them, Ser Pounce-a-Lot," Anders said. "Caitie gets to bring her dog, I don't see why you can't come too."

"My dog is staying here to help guard the keep," said Cait, and they all turned to watch her approach, "Also, he's a trained war dog and has been a Grey Warden longer than you have."

"I've seen him bite the head off an ogre," Oghren added with a laugh.

"You don't worry about him catching the darkspawn taint?" Anders asked curiously, still petting Pounce under his chin.

"He's immune," Cait said with a shrug, then froze as her own thoughts caught up with her. "He's immune to the taint. He got sick, as soon as we got to Ostagar, before we'd even seen a darkspawn, but… there's a flower in the Korcari Wilds and it cured him."

She pulled out her journal and drew a picture of the flower to the best of her memory, mind racing the whole time. "Anders, do you know what this flower is?"

He looked away from his cat to stare at her drawing. "Maybe? It looks a bit like a variety of Andraste's Grace."

"What are you thinking, Caitie?" Nathaniel asked quietly.

"Just speculation right now. Maybe nothing. Maybe something," she said vaguely, then added in a whisper only to him, "I wonder if it could cure _us_." He raised an eyebrow, started to say something, but Cait shook her head, "Later. Somewhere with less ears."

Nate nodded, and as the group set off down the road he instead said, "You weren't in bed when I woke up."

"I'm sorry," she said, dragging her mind back to the present. She smiled tiredly at him. "I had a lot of work to do before we could leave this morning."

He pulled her into a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head. The others pretended not to notice. "Next time, wake me up. It'll get done faster with two pairs of hands."

"You'll regret making that offer," Cait said, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

The air felt less oppressive the farther they got from the crowded keep. Summer was right around the corner, and they could feel it on the wind, hot and bright and clear. It didn't completely wash away Cait's exhaustion, but it kept her mind on the road and the task at hand. 

And she had somewhere to start on her pet project now. She hadn't really realized she was still thinking about it, hadn't had much time to commit to it outside of a couple quick letters to Avernus, but it was still on her mind. These new possibilities combined with the sun warming her tired bones made it feel like a good day despite the dread and chaos.

"Hey, uh, Cait," said Oghren, obviously nervous.

"Yes? Something on your mind?"

"Your name. It's short for something, right?" He was watching the dirt at their feet instead of looking at her.

She stared at him, trying to figure out what he was fishing for, but he was uncharacteristically not forthcoming. "It is. My full name is Cathain. You know that, Oghren. What's this about?"

“Nothin’!” he said quickly. “Nothing. It’s just, ah… well, Felsi, she’s pregnant, and I was just thinking… if it’s a girl, we might name her… after you.”

“Oghren, I’d be honored,” Cait said, and her voice broke in the middle of it. She knew, in a general kind of way, that people would be naming their children after her. She’d met a few in Denerim already. People like to name their kids after heroes, and no matter how much she tried to escape it, that’s what she was. 

It felt different to hear it from a friend, from someone who knew her beyond all the death caused in her name. She cleared her throat and added, “She was a great warrior, you know. Cathain. She fought alongside King Calenhad to unite Ferelden. My father had high hopes for me, I guess.”

Oghren didn’t say anything in reply, still staring at the ground, so they kept walking in silence.

It didn’t take them long to find where the caravan was attacked. It was barely midday when it became obvious that they had gotten to where they needed to be. Debris and overturned wagons covered the stretch of road, carrion birds and scavengers picking at the remains. Both flew away as the Grey Wardens approached.

“Not to belabor the point or anything,” Anders said cheerfully, “but I think this caravan was attacked.”

“What would we do without your keen observational skills,” Cait said dryly.

“There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to the destruction,” Nathaniel said, walking purposefully around the rubble. “Some tracks lead down the path into the forest. Bandits, most likely, like the ones that just ran away. Nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing that could cause this kind of damage.”

“Then into the woods we go.” Cait took a deep breath and stepped off the road and onto the rough path. “Keep your eyes peeled. Any movement could be trouble, even the trees themselves.”

The scavengers found the first sylvan ambush for them, stumbling face first into a trio of angry pine trees. They didn’t stand much chance, but it gave Cait and her people time to get ready when those trees turned their gnarled attention their way. They fell easily enough to mage fire and the steady application of Oghren’s axe. Oghren recited really bad rhymes at them as he hacked off their branches. Cait couldn’t find it in herself to feel sorry for them, but she felt a bit sorry for herself for having to hear the berserker’s attempts at poetry.

After Oghren's rhyme started to sound more like bawdy bar songs, Sigrun asked, loudly drowning him out, "Do you know any poetry, Cait?"

"Sure, some," she shrugged. "I’ll confess I didn’t pay as much attention to my tutor as I should have, but you throw enough darts at a board and something’s bound to stick eventually, right? Nate would know more than me."

"It's been a long time since I had much call to recite poetry," Nathaniel said.

"I had a friend in the Legion who was a big fan of poetry," Sigrun said. "Used to recite it to himself all the time. Tried to write some, too, but wasn't very good at it."

"Do you remember any?"

"Let's see…" she thought for a minute and then recited " _'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace.'_ There's more to it, but I can't remember the phrasing." Sigrun grinned broadly as they blinked in the silence after she was done. Cait didn't know what she expected, but it wasn't that. "Hidden depths, Commander."

"I like that, the Legion bringing life to the Deep Roads with music and poetry," Nathaniel said softly. "Love poems, then. Hmm… _'Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come; love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’_ "

It was ridiculous to be blushing as they walked through a forest of murderous trees, but here Cait was, face burning and unable to look at Nathaniel at all. She would hear his deep, warm voice reciting poetry in her dreams now.

She stubbornly refused to acknowledge it, talking over her embarrassment as if ignoring it would make it go away. "I don't know any love poems, I'm afraid. Most of the poetry I know starts 'There once was a man from Orlais.' Maybe I'll work on that, when we get home."

Justice's awed voice sounded behind them, rescuing Cait from further scrutiny. "Every day, I learn more of the depths of beauty of your world. Is there more like this poetry?"

"We have entire books of it at the Vigil," Nate said. "On any subject you can imagine. We'll find some for you."

"I wouldn't have figured you for a poetry fan, Justice," said Anders, conspicuously not participating in their poetry reading. Chances were, he knew more than all of them combined. Cait had been to the Circle tower; it didn't contain much to do recreationally outside of reading.

"There are many things in this world I cannot experience for myself. I will never have a love like the one I see in Kristoff's memories. But those words you spoke, those poems…" Justice's eyes were distant, as if he could still see their words in the air. Maybe he could. "They help me understand it in a way I did not before. Thank you for this gift."

" _Never_ is a strong word." Anders nudged Justice companionably in the side. Justice remained unamused. "The world is a big place. You don't know what you might find."

What they _did_ find was a barrier of twisted, gnarled tree roots blocking their path across a small, rickety bridge. Good. They hadn't been making any attempt to be quiet and, as Cait had hoped, it drew the mastermind of all this destruction right to them.

An elven woman appeared as if formed by the tree roots themselves, lithe and dark-skinned and _furious_. She reminded Cait at first of the Lady of the Wood, but she carried none of the ethereal _otherness_ that spirits so often did. She was just a person. A very powerful, very angry person.

She stared at Cait from behind her barricade of roots like one stares at a spider on their wall before smashing it. “You are too well armed to be just another scavenger. Here for me, then.” It wasn’t a question. “You will not drive me from these forests.”

Cait stepped forward, right up against the barrier. One of the roots wrapped curiously around her wrist. The woman held her gaze without blinking. “You’re the one attacking travelers on the road. Why?”

The Dalish woman - Cait could see her facial markings now that she was close - snarled threateningly. “Your kind killed my friends and kidnapped my sister. The caravans are only the beginning.” She smiled, a sharp-edged threat just as much as her words were. “I want Seranni returned to me, or more will die. Consider this a warning.”

Then the roots wrapped around her, and when they receded the road was empty and clear again.

After the woman was gone, Cait stared for a long time at the place she had been. “Like looking into a blighted mirror,” she muttered to herself. Louder, she said, “Well, at least we know who’s calling spirits into the trees.”

Anders stepped up next to her, staring at the same spot on the road. “Really? All this done by one woman?”

Cait smiled humorlessly. “One woman can do a lot of things if properly motivated. Someone kidnapped her sister, she said. I’d say that’s some decent blighted motivation.”

“So we need to find the sister or the people who took her,” Nathaniel said, eyes on the trees. They all, for now, looked like normal trees. “It won’t be safe to travel to or from Denerim until we do.”

“We could just hunt down and kill this crazy broad,” Oghren pointed out gruffly.

Sigrun reluctantly agreed. “We could. It would be easier.”

“There is no justice in that.”

Nathaniel nodded. “I agree with Justice. She’s been wronged and she’s lashing out. She’s gone a bit overboard, maybe, but if we help her, perhaps she can be reasoned with.”

“Hunting down kidnappers in a haunted forest.” Anders shrugged. “Sure, I’ll try anything once.”

The bandits became much less wary and the sylvans much larger and stronger the farther they moved into the forest. The path became harder to follow, then disappeared entirely, leaving them tripping over tree roots and small shrubs in addition to fighting their awakened kin.

They came out into a sudden clearing containing several tents and several more shallow, hastily dug graves. Two wagons stood nearby, carved with familiar murals of unfamiliar gods. 

Cait traced her fingertips along the curling horns of a halla painted on a tent. "These are Dalish _aravels_. It looks like a clan was camping here and was wiped out. Justice, what happened here? Can you sense it?"

"This place is scarred by pain," Justice replied, his normally stern voice softened by sadness. "Many lives were lost."

"Pile of weapons over here, Commander," Sigrun called. She nudged the toe of her boot at a large, haphazard jumble of rusting and chipped swords. "Human make. They look like they were left here deliberately."

"Planted to make it look like humans did this?" Anders stood by a sword standing point-down in the ground like a stake. He tried to pull it free, but it didn't budge. "It’s not even very well done. Who kills a bunch of innocents and then just leaves their weapons piled up by the bodies? Surely no one would fall for that."

"Looks like someone did," Nathaniel said darkly. "The woman by the bridge had Dalish markings."

"So someone kills her clan and makes it look like humans did it," Oghren said from his sentinel position by the road. "She starts killing all the humans that pass through." 

Anders stumbled backwards as the sword came free from the dirt. He stared at it like it contained the answers to all their problems. "Who stands to profit from this? What good does all this chaos serve anyone?"

"I’ve got a very bad feeling that we already know who’s behind this." Cait stood next to Justice by the fresh cairns, rage already burning hot in her blood.

"Then the swords weren’t bait for her," Nate said, and she could hear the anger simmering behind his words too. "They were bait for us and she just got caught in the trap."

As the others turned to leave, Justice didn't move, still as death next to the neat row of graves. Cait touched his arm and he didn't acknowledge her. "You okay, Justice?"

“Death. We spirits know no more of it than you do. What lies beyond is obscured, even to us.” He knelt next to the nearest cairn, laying a hand against the cool stone. Cait finally recognized what she heard in his voice: grief. He was grieving for the fallen elves. “You called them Dalish. Kristoff was familiar with that name. Can you tell me about them?”

“I don’t know much,” Cait said apologetically. “They’re free elves, those that refuse to live in the alienages in human cities. Some say it’s because they were cast out, but I’ve also heard they chose this life. That the Dalish would rather travel the forests without a place to call home than to be forced to bend the knee to… to people like me.” She put a hand on his shoulder, and he covered it with his own in a surprisingly mortal gesture. “I’m sorry I don’t know more. My education was very… human-centric. The more I see of the world, the more I learn how little I actually know.”

Justice stood and turned to face her, watching her with unblinking eyes. “It was wrong, what happened to these people. These Dalish.”

Cait didn’t know if he meant this specific clan or the elves as a whole. The answer was the same either way. “Yes.”

“But… the woman on the bridge, what she has done is also wrong.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He looked back at the graves, expression pensive. “Then which side is the right one, if she is both offender and victim?”

“Sometimes there isn’t a right side. Sometimes you just have to choose which side you can live with,” Cait said gently. It would probably be weird for both of them if she hugged him, but she was tempted to anyway. “Which side do you think is right, Justice?”

“I… wish to help the woman avenge her people. I should want to punish her for her crimes, but I do not.” He balled his hands into fists, the creaking of leather and bone loud in the empty camp. “What am I if not a seeker of justice?”

Cait gave in and hugged him, but pulled away before it got weird. “Maybe you’re just becoming a person like the rest of us. Not a demon,” she added quickly as something very much like fear filled his glowing eyes, “demons taint and pervert the desires of mortals, you said that yourself. But… you can be a seeker of justice while still sympathizing with those who do bad things for misguided reasons. You can seek justice, and love, and beauty, and compassion. These things can coexist, Justice.”

A lot of emotions crossed his expression rapidly. Cait didn’t know if he’d truly gotten that good at expressing them or if she had just gotten good at reading him. Then he nodded at her and said, voice serious and familiar. “I will think on what you have said. Let us move on.”

\-------

The presence of darkspawn less than an hour after they left the Dalish camp felt like confirmation of who they were dealing with. They were easy to dispatch; bait, just like the swords, just like the merchants, just like the angry, grieving elven woman caught in the middle.

“Why is the Architect so _obsessed_ with you?” Anders asked, kicking a dead darkspawn irately. “Just keeps setting more and more complicated traps, and for what? To get your attention?”

Cait couldn’t find her voice over the fury building in her chest, but Nathaniel answered for her. “He’s not going to like the way that works out for him.”

Every step deeper into the woods made Cait more tense. There was a rage in this forest that hadn’t been here when they’d passed through barely a month prior. Under the shadow of Blackmarsh, it had been shrouded in deep, slow sorrow. Now, it was free and it was _angry_. It wrapped around her heart and squeezed until every breath hurt, until her vision was red and her hands bled from the cut of her nails as she clenched her fists tighter.

The rage wasn’t wholly her own. She understood that. But the core of it belonged to her, only amplified by the Wending Wood. She wondered if it belonged to the Dalish woman, with her dead clan and her missing sister, or if the forest fed her anger too. If it was hers, she had earned it. It was a familiar pain; her family slaughtered, her brother missing, Cait had carved a swath of red on her own path to vengeance, hadn’t she? Who was she to judge another woman for the same?

They stopped for the night by a pair of statues in an area clear enough of trees that they were unlikely to be attacked by sylvans. It wasn’t safe to hunt or forage alone, so they settled for a simple stew made from dried rations.

During her watch, the statues started to speak to her. She thought she was hallucinating at first, but even her imagination wasn’t that weird. She reached out to touch one, a tall and muscular man wearing hide armor and holding a large sword that looked sharp enough to cut even though it was made of stone. It--he?--was warm in a way that couldn’t be explained just by the sun.

“Who are you? Or… who were you, I suppose,” Cait asked, sitting on the ground between the two statues and gazing up at them.

A voice came from within the warrior statue, rough and gravelly. He didn’t sound like a golem speaking, like sound forced through stone. He could have been just a normal person if he wasn’t so still and grey, if his accent hadn’t been so unfamiliar. “I have forgotten… my name… but I am a warrior. I am Avvar. And I am cursed.”

He spoke in his ancient accent of Tevinter mages of a thousand years ago, of a battle at the Fort of a Thousand Vigils which could only be Vigil’s Keep. She’d known it was an Avvar fortress once, but having it confirmed like this was still dizzying. So much history under the stones of her own home and she barely had access to a sliver of it.

Every word the warrior spoke came harsher, harder, more outraged until they were barely even words anymore. It drew her companions from their tents in curiosity, but they stood back, silent, and let the warrior rage.

When his anger overwhelmed him and he couldn’t form words anymore, his brother spoke up instead. He was more than a head shorter than the warrior, but bore a spear taller than either of them, and he wore what must have been ceremonial robes that did nothing to hide the thinness of his frame. His voice was soft and sweet and Cait could hear the smile in it even though his face could no longer express it. "What is your name, child?"

"Cathain."

"Cathain. A strong name. You are a born warrior as much as my brother." He waited for her to deny it, but she didn't. He was very observant considering he didn't have eyes. "Not all things can be fought, child, much as you or my brother may wish it so. Our curse is one such thing."

"Is there no way to free you?" Cait hated how small her voice was.

"There is no release," said the scholar. "But with peace, serenity--we can sleep."

"My brother has grown weak," the warrior snarled. "In truth, weakness was always in him. He was a thinker. A dreamer. Not a warrior."

Cait didn't know why he couldn't be both, but she didn't say so. Their culture was not her culture and it wasn't her place to judge it.

The scholar's voice remained calm in the face of his brother's frothing rage. Probably used to it. "Anger will not free us. Revenge will not free us. With the long seasons, I have seen that violence often accomplishes naught."

It felt like he was speaking to her and his brother both. "Has anger helped you? Aren’t you miserable?" Cait asked the warrior. He snarled wordlessly. "I know I am. It burns in me until all I can taste is ash."

As if through gritted teeth, the warrior said, "This life of earth… is beyond bearing."

"Then rest," she said softly. "Release your anger and it will release you."

"What you ask… is difficult."

"I know. Trust me, I _know_."

"I… I will try. It will take time…" and then the warrior was silent.

"You should take your own advice, Cathain Battle-maiden," the scholar chastised.

"I'll try." If an ancient, cursed barbarian could try and find peace, so could she. She looked up at the kind stone face of the scholar. "I'll visit again sometime. Make sure your rest is undisturbed."

"May we meet again in a brighter future." He couldn't bow, but she could hear it in his voice. A salute. A goodbye.

"Are you really Avvar barbarians?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Does it matter?"

A cool breeze swept through the clearing and Cait took the first painless breath all day. The worst of the anger, the part she could recognize as not her own, lifted so suddenly and completely that she fell backwards to lay in the dirt. She took a few more deep, cleansing breaths before she pushed herself to her feet.

Her friends all still stood there, but none of them had anything to say so they went back to bed - except Sigrun, who insisted it was her watch now.

"Statue said rest," she said, physically lifting Cait off the ground to carry her to her tent. "Two things I know are that our ancestors grant us wisdom and the stone guides us where we need to go. So a thousand year old barbarian made of rock says 'rest', you're going to rest."

It was hard to argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is something so fun about taking something (the Architect) that the audience all knows exactly what it is and then making your characters speculate about it as incorrectly as possible :P
> 
> it hadn't been the intention originally, but I like to think her time in Amaranthine is good practice for Leliana when she later becomes an adviser for the Inquisition
> 
> poems are "How Do I Love Thee" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and "Sonnet 116" by William Shakespeare. two of my personal favorite love poems


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cait and her companions have their first real run-in with the Architect, and the plot against her comes to a head.

They found a pit full of bodies early the next morning. Humans, armored but weaponless. If they had had any doubt that the Dalish camp had been staged, they didn’t now. One of the bodies, just outside the pit, was still moving. Cait rushed over to him. 

He was emaciated, looking more like a corpse than Justice, if only barely. Even if she hadn't recognized the bruise-like blemishes of the darkspawn taint, she would have felt the man in her blood. He didn't have long; even on the small chance that the Joining might save him, he wouldn't survive the trip back to the Vigil. His grip on her hand was crushingly strong even though his eyes couldn't focus on her face. In the halting, meandering manner of those lost to the taint, he confirmed the truth of their assumptions. The darkspawn killed both sides and baited the elven woman into her misdirected vengeance.

His hazy eyes snapped to Cait's, suddenly intense and focused. "The dark ones are curious about you too. They watch you as well as her. Can you feel them?"

"Always," Cait said solemnly. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

"Make… make an end… please," he pleaded, eyes not leaving hers.

"Find peace at the Maker's side, brother." She slid her blade between his ribs, quick, clean, and as painless a death as she could make it.

Her vision blurred, angry, frustrated tears brimming to the surface. She stubbornly refused to let them fall. Nathaniel’s hand fell on her shoulder, but she could barely acknowledge him. She just wanted to be done with this place. Find the Architect, or whoever he had sent to kill all these people, to leave this bloody message, and rip them to pieces. She would leave her rage in their ashes and not a moment sooner.

Later, when she feels more like herself, she’ll remember the pain and rage on Nate’s face, too, and the way he still remembered himself enough to look after her. She’ll be grateful for it, grateful for him, and will show him exactly how much she appreciates him, the best and only way she knows how.

But she couldn’t be that woman right now. The taint burned in her blood as darkspawn approached them, and fury solidified in her heart as something colder, harder. Her blade was already moving for the closest one as her body turned to follow it.

They ran into the Dalish woman twice more. Both times, she was unreceptive to conversation and angier than the last. Cait was getting really tired of fighting trees, especially after one of them gouged a thin, sharp branch through her thigh like a needle. Cleaning the bark out of the wound was even more painful than the injury itself and cost them too much time.

They finally cornered her back in the Dalish camp. She roared at Cait, a wordless, primal sound of frustration and futility. She seemed surprised that she wasn’t cowed by it. "You… you will never take me alive," she hissed.

Cait held her hands up away from her weapons, but she didn't stop walking forward. "I’m not going to kill you. I'm not here to arrest you. I just want to talk."

The Dalish woman laughed, harsh and humorless. "Talk, then."

"The humans didn't kill your people,” Cait said, trying to sound calm and not fooling anyone. “The darkspawn did. They killed the human soldiers and planted their weapons at your clan’s campsite.”

For the first time, the elvish woman’s hostile posture faltered. “What? That’s impossible. The darkspawn are mindless monsters.”

“Not anymore,” Cait shook her head slowly, “not all of them.”

“Then are you telling me the darkspawn took my sister?” She dropped her arms to her sides.

Cait dropped her arms too. “Yes. Most likely.”

“Why? Why would they do this?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

They stared at each other from less than a foot apart, a silent challenge passing between them. Neither of them blinked first, but the Dalish woman did eventually concede enough to say “Let me come with you.”

“Okay.”

“My name is Velanna, if you care for such things.” If she was surprised at how quickly Cait acquiesced, she didn’t show it.

“I’m Cathain. These are my friends,” she gestured at the others, standing far back from the standoff between the two women. She’d let them introduce themselves on their own time. “How well do you know this area? Are there any tunnels the darkspawn might be coming from?”

Velanna thought about it for a moment, before pointing deeper into the forest. “There is an abandoned mine some ways to the north. That would be the most likely place they are hiding.”

“Very well, then. Lead the way.”

The moment they stepped into the mines, Cait knew what was waiting for them there. The bad feeling she’d been carrying since they left the Vigil squirmed in her gut again. There was nothing good in this place.

It was her last thought before unconsciousness took her.

\-------

The next thing Cait was aware of, she was strapped to a table. She tested the ropes at her wrists, but they held firm. The tallest darkspawn emissary she’d ever seen stood over her. It wore fine, gold and purple robes that were vastly different from the piecemeal and haphazard armor most darkspawn wore. Its eyes were covered by an intricate golden mask, but Cait could feel it watching her nonetheless.

“So you are the commander of the Grey Wardens,” it said in a hissing, sonorous voice.

Cait snarled at it, a barely human sound. “Where are my friends?”

“They are being tended to,” The Architect said. That’s who it had to be; her blood knew it even if they’d never met before.

“Tended to like _I_ am?” She couldn’t move enough to look around the room, but she didn’t hear any familiar voices. Or any other voices at all, beyond her own and the Architect.

“I apologize for what I must do,” it said, and it almost sounded like it meant it. “I do not wish to be your enemy.”

“I don’t know if your kind have a god,” she snapped, straining at the ropes again, “but I hope you’ve made your peace with him.”

“Charming,” the Architect said, its composure slipping slightly. “Now is not the time for this. Rest.”

Cait didn’t know how long she was on that table. Her consciousness came and went in waves of pain and screaming and the smell of blood and the Architect, always the Architect, watching her, studying her, speaking to her in that slow, calm voice.

She woke up on the cold stone floor. Metal bars filled her vision and the air smelled like blood and hay and dust. Her head spun when she moved it to look around.

“She is awake,” Justice said softly, and Cait was so happy to hear his voice that she could have wept if she had the energy.

“Is everyone okay?” Cait’s voice was a broken rasp, lost to screaming.

“We’re not hurt and we’re all here,” Sigrun said from somewhere to her right.

“I think it kept just kept us here as leverage,” Anders scoffed. “In case you proved _uncooperative_.”

“I wasn’t conscious enough to be uncooperative,” she said, struggling to sit up. No one reached to help her, but she could feel how much they wanted to. Her whole body felt like it was on fire, pain lancing into her joints and behind her eyes and prickling like needles along her skin. “Maker, everything hurts. Does it look as bad as it feels?”

“You look lovely as ever,” Nathaniel said. She turned her head slowly toward him; his smile when their eyes met was heartbreaking. “Hi, Caitie.”

“Nate.” She reached for him, squeezed his hand as hard as she was able. “You’re a bad liar, love.” He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob and she pulled him close. It hurt to touch him but it hurt more not to. “Any plans on how we’re getting out of here? I’m open to suggestions.”

“I have a place you can start,” said an unfamiliar voice, and there was a scramble of motion in their little cell as everyone got to their feet. Cait was the last one standing, Nathaniel and Anders flanking her and keeping her from collapsing. There was an elven woman at the bars, dark-skinned and pale-haired and obviously Velanna’s missing sister. She showed signs of the taint, but her eyes were bright and alert.

Velanna reached her first, reaching through the bars for her sister. “Seranni! Oh creators, what have they done to you?”

Seranni took her sister’s hand and pat it in an affectionate and comforting way. “They haven’t done anything, Velanna. I’m fine. It’s not me he wants.” Her eyes met Cait’s as she finally made it to the bars. “I have to get you out of here. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

“What does it want with me?” Cait asked, clenching her hands on the bars of their cell to hold herself up without help.

“I don’t know,” said Seranni. “I don’t know anything. I just know you need to hurry.” There was a sound father into the tunnels and she looked over her shoulder, an edge of panic in her eyes.

“Come with us, Seranni! Let me take you home!” Velanna tried to keep a hold on her sister, but Seranni slipped a key into her sister’s hand and then stepped away.

She shook her head sadly at her sister. “You have to go, Velanna. Please.” There was another sound, closer than the last, and then voices. Seranni looked once more at her sister, then at Cait, and then she was gone.

“Seranni, wait!” Velanna called. “I can’t just leave you!”

“We don’t have a choice,” Sigrun said gently. She touched Velanna’s arm and coaxed the elf to turn back to her. “If the darkspawn take Cait back out there, she won’t survive it. We have to get her out. Your sister is alive. We’ll find her again, I promise.”

Something passed between them and then Velanna nodded, defeated, and handed Sigrun the key she’d been given. Sigrun unlocked the door and it opened with a loud creak. 

Cait staggered as the bars moved away from her and she had to catch herself from falling. Several hands reached to catch her, but she waved them all away. All of them backed off except Nathaniel, who wrapped an arm stubbornly around her. “I can walk, Nate. I won’t be much good in a fight right now. You’ll need both arms free.”

“No,” he growled. “I am not letting you go. It’s been a _week_ , Caitie. A week in this _cage_ listening to you _screaming_.” He touched his forehead to hers and released a shaky breath. It was a long time before he spoke again. “I am not. Letting. You. Go.”

She let him help her. 

They fought several small groups of darkspawn as they made their way through the mine tunnels, letting the mages take the lead since their combat prowess wasn’t lessened without their gear. The rest of them picked weapons off corpses as they went. They found their own armor again eventually, on ghouls that were wandering the halls. If this whole situation hadn’t been personal for Cait already, having to peel her armor off of a ghoul and the smell of taint and decay clinging to the leather would have made it personal. 

When they found the Architect again, Nathaniel’s strong arm was the only thing that kept Cait from throwing herself at it, weapons drawn. It was on a balcony, high above their reach with Seranni and a dwarven woman Cait didn’t recognize; the temptation to climb up there and start stabbing was strong, but she wasn’t. Another opportunity would present itself. As the Architect stared down at her, something mournful on its twisted face, she hoped it saw the threat in her eyes.

It turned to leave, dwarf and elf in tow, and sealed the tunnel behind it. She felt them recede deeper into the earth until they blended in to the hum of the rest of the darkspawn and were gone.

Velanna looked like she wanted to go climbing after them too, Sigrun gently restraining her from doing so. “Why is she with that _monster_? We must get to her!”

“We will,” Cait said quietly, voice still too broken to speak above a whisper. “We’ll find another way, I promise.”

Velanna nodded at the conviction she heard in her voice. “They say the Wardens can sense darkspawn even deep beneath the ground. Is this true?”

“It is. And that one," Cait tore her eyes away from the buried tunnel entrance to look at the Dalish woman, "will not escape me. Even blind, deaf, and dying, I could hunt him down.”

Velanna lifted her head, something exultant and proud in her eyes. “I would join you in your hunt. Let me join the Grey Wardens.”

“It’s a death sentence," Cait said simply. "Maybe soon, maybe later, we all end up in the same place.”

“I am not afraid of death!" She grabbed Cait by the shoulders, eyes and touch burning in equal measure. "I pledge myself to your service. Let me help you hunt the monster who has stolen my sister from me, and I will follow you.”

Cait offered a hand to Velanna, weak but steady. “Welcome to the Grey Wardens, sister.”

Velanna shook her hand triumphantly. “Ma serannas.”

“My first order as your commander is to find us an exit back to sunlight." Cait dropped her hand and leaned heavily on Nathaniel. "I think I’ve lost a lot of blood and I won’t be able to stand much longer.”

“With pleasure. I’ve had enough of this place.”

\-------

Getting back above ground was easy enough, since all their impediments to doing so were gone. They stopped in the first clearing they found so Cait could rest and they could all eat something that hadn't been cooked by darkspawn.

Nathaniel hovered by Cait where she leaned against a tree. He needed to go hunt, but he didn't want to leave her.

"Go, Nate," she rasped. "I'll be right here."

He looked like he had several things he wanted to say, but none of them came out. Instead, he turned to Velanna and told her, "Don't let her leave. The moment you take your eyes off her, she'll be on the road trying to march home on her own."

"I love you too," Cait whispered with an exhausted smile.

Nate froze. It took her a long moment to realize why, and almost as soon as she had he was moving, dropping to his knees in front of her. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her fiercely. "Stay. Here."

After he left, Cait turned to Velanna, who was tending the fire and watching her like a hawk. "Tell me the truth, Velanna," she said, "how bad is it?"

"You look tired, starved, and like you've lost a lot of blood, but there aren't any marks on you from whatever they did," Velanna said, as bluntly as Cait had hoped she would. "I think the rest of them would be coping better if there was." She tilted her head in an almost bird-like motion, studying her. "He almost ripped the bars off our cell trying to get to you. So did the other one, the mage. He shot lightning at the dwarf woman when she brought us food."

Cait huffed a laugh. "I'm sorry I missed that."

"I am surprised that these men that care so much for you would leave you in my care." As if to give an example, Velanna weaved her hand through the air and several wooden spikes, roots or branches Cait couldn't tell, shot up from the ground. She collected them to feed to the fire. "Last you remember, we were barely allies."

"Do you mean me harm, Velanna?" Cait asked plainly.

"No." She kept watching her while coaxing the fire to life, curious and still a bit suspicious. "Do you truly not plan to punish me when we return to your fortress?"

"No." Cait said. She almost left it there, but Velanna deserved an explanation. "Almost two years ago, a man came into my family's home and slaughtered them. The only people that survived were myself and my brother, who was at the time missing in the forest far to the south."

Velanna nodded, a single terse bob of her head. "I see. So you sympathize with my motivations, then. That explains why you didn't kill me before." The fire now crackling happily, Velanna joined Cait by the tree. "What did you do to him, this man who killed your family?"

"I hunted him down and killed him in cold blood." A smile tugged at her lips and she added, "And then I seduced his oldest son."

Velanna laughed delightedly. She had a very pretty laugh. "Would that be your bondmate, then?"

"Yes." Cait liked that word a lot. Bondmate. It felt much less formal than the terms she was more familiar with. "We will get your sister back, Velanna, if I have to storm the Black City itself to do so."

"I believe you," Velanna said, and seemed surprised that she had. "Thank you, Commander."

Cait scoffed. "Call me Cait. Or Cathain is fine. I try not to stand much on formality."

"I see." Another bird-like head tilt. "Very well. Cathain, then."

Cait dozed against the tree as the others returned and food was cooked. Someone was always close, sitting by her side or watching over her; every time she opened her eyes it was someone new. When their meal was ready, she found her plate magically refilling itself whenever she took her eyes off it, but no one would take credit for it. She wanted to scold them for it, but she also didn’t know the last time she’d eaten anything, so she settled for sneaking food back onto other people’s plates when they turned their backs.

She felt a little steadier when she stood up, no dizziness and her balance only a little wobbly. She started to make her way, slowly but without help, back towards the trail.

“We don’t need to hurry, you know,” Anders said, walking beside Nathaniel, who was still glued to her side. “We can camp here, go back to Vigil’s Keep when you’re feeling stronger.”

“I want to go _home_. I want to sleep in my bed. I won’t let the Architect take that from me.” Cait didn’t know what else the Architect had taken from her - or worse, had added to her - but it would not take the Vigil from her. “So I am going to walk until I either get back to the Vigil or I collapse. You can stay here in you want to.”

He didn’t, of course. He kept doing this very unsubtle thing where he would bump into her as they walked, or touch her arm, and every time she felt the warm rush of healing magic, and every time he said he had no idea what she was talking about. It didn’t do any good; nothing that was wrong with her now was something that he could heal, but he kept trying.

Cait didn’t end up collapsing on the way back to the Vigil, but only because the first time she showed signs of struggling, Justice silently scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way. He said nothing to acknowledge what he was doing and she could do nothing to stop him. He was very strong for a corpse.

Loghain, Leliana, and Varel, all armed and armored, as well as Byron and half a dozen soldiers in Amaranthine colors - including, Cait recognized, Jasper and Avina - were in the courtyard when they walked through the gates. They looked like they were waiting for something.

Judging by the cheers and overlapping voices and general commotion on their approach, they weren’t what the keep had been preparing for.

Justice finally put her down with a little coaxing, and she met her people in the center of the courtyard. They all spoke over each other rapidly.

“What’s going on?” Cait asked, straining to be heard over the din. “You look like you’re prepping for war.”

“Where have you been?” Leliana demanded at the same time. “It’s been a week and a half! We were about to start sending out search parties.”

"There's been a situation that you should be made aware of, Commander," Varel said, soft voice carrying even though he didn't raise it.

“Quiet!” Velanna’s voice carried over the noise. Everyone fell silent, even the sound of Wade’s blacksmith hammer pausing. Once she saw that everyone was looking at her, she nodded to Nathaniel.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, then turned to the rest of them. “What is all this about?”

“We received word from a contact in Amaranthine that Bann Esmerelle was seen with a full escort of guards on the road to the Vigil,” Loghain said tersely. “I doubt she’s coming just to chat, and even if she is, I doubt she’d be willing to sit outside the walls while we waited for you to return.”

“We were waylaid by the Architect,” Nate growled. “It spent the last week with Caitie on an operating table.”

“Are you okay, Caitie?” Leliana asked quietly. She touched Cait’s hair and face gently, and Cait was careful to keep her face blank when that careful touch seared across her skin.

“Nothing a bath, a good meal, and a week or two in bed won’t fix,” Cait said in her broken voice, and she hoped it was the truth. “You think Esmerelle will wait for me?”

“Give it a minute and you can ask her yourself,” Loghain muttered. His sharp eyes saw a lot of the things they weren’t saying. “I don’t suppose you’d listen to reason and go inside while we handle this.”

“I’ve never been reasonable a day in my life,” she said with a ghost of a smile. “I don’t know why you think I’d start now.”

“Will you at least let us do the talking? If she senses any weakness in you, she’ll try to seize on it.” He put a hand on her shoulder and everyone in their little huddle froze at her tiny, pained gasp. “She’ll try to challenge you to a duel. She could probably even beat you as you are right now.”

She did her best to keep her back straight and her head high. “Then it’s a good thing I have so many champions lined up to fight for me.”

With a complete lack of subtlety or finesse, Bann Esmerelle’s entourage clanked and stomped into the courtyard. Cait leaned casually against a wall, in plain sight of the gate, and her people spread out through the space. Nathaniel, Loghain, Leliana, and Varel stayed close, flanking her like an honor guard. It was all delightfully dramatic and she had to fight to keep her face blank.

Esmerelle wore a set of armor that didn’t look made for her, too wide in the shoulders and long in the arms. She approached Cait with unconcealed malice in her eyes, stopping only when Loghain, his armor like a second skin and his eyes much more malicious, stepped to block her path. “I seek an audience with the Warden-Commander,” she said coldly.

“Her Grace was not expecting you,” Nathaniel said in a dangerously formal tone. “She is not speaking with visitors today. Go home, and she will send for you when she has time for trivial matters.”

Esmerelle turned her hateful eyes on him. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Nate’s smile was sharp and bright as a blade. Cait tried not to look too smitten; she could watch him do this all day. “I think you’ll find that you do. You don’t have any power in these walls, Esmerelle.”

“Neither do you,” she snarled. “ _Her Grace_ left you with nothing and sits on your throne while you kneel at her feet like a loyal little pup and beg for scraps. Your father would be ashamed.”

Nathaniel actually rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t doubt it. He never wanted me to be Arl. I bet he’s rolling over in his shallow, unmarked grave that I will be.” He crossed his arms, almost casually. “He’d be ashamed of you, too, Esmerelle. You do a very poor job of ensuring the loyalty of your soldiers. If you don’t give your assassins enough incentives, they’re very quick to turn on you.”

“It’s ironic, really,” Zevran said lightly, his blade sliding ever so gently against Esmerelle’s unarmored throat as he stepped into view wearing the same armor and helm as the rest of the bann’s soldiers. “Your Rendon Howe hired me to kill the Warden once, too. It worked out as well for him as it is for you.”

“Bann Esmerelle of Amaranthine,” Varel intoned, reading from a piece of paper that he hadn’t had in his hand before, “you are accused of conspiracy against the arling of Amaranthine and treason against its ruler. Before these witnesses, we find you guilty of all charges. The punishment--”

“Kill the Commander!” Esmerelle called out to her guards. “Do with the rest as--” she never got to finish her sentence, collapsing to the ground with a dagger in the back of her neck.

“Oops,” Zevran said with a shrug. “My apologies, my dear. I got tired of waiting.”

“The punishment for treason is death,” Varel finished dryly. “Maker grant you mercy, for you’ll find none here.”

Her soldiers hadn’t fared any better. Esmerelle either thought Cait was stupid and unaware of her conspiracy or had vastly underestimated the skill of the Wardens. She would have needed twice the people to even pose a threat; as it was, they hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“Someone please clean up this mess,” Cait rasped, as loud as she was able. “And Varel, please prepare the Joining.”

“As you say, Commander.” Varel looked happy to be moving to more familiar ground, and led Velanna inside the keep. Sigrun followed them, and Velanna visibly relaxed once she saw the Legionnaire with them.

“I’ll stand witness at this one, Cait,” Loghain said. “You should go recover before the next crisis arrives.” Cait opened her mouth to protest, but he continued, “Howe, please see our Commander makes it safely to her room.”

“He is not yours to give orders to,” she hissed. “Neither am I.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and lowered his voice. “You look like you’re on death’s door. I know you think you can take on the world, but even you have limits. You need to heal. To rest. Please, Caitie.”

The fight went out of her and so did the last of her energy. Loghain _never_ called her Caitie. It had taken four months to get him to stop calling her _Warden_. He looked at her the same way as he had after her close call with the archdemon, concern and something fragile and kind in his eyes; it told her more than everyone else’s careful, worried distance exactly how rough she must look. She nodded, too tired for words anymore, and Nathaniel wordlessly picked her up and carried her into the Vigil and straight to their room.

He set her down as soon as the door shut, but she didn't let him go far. She grabbed the collar of his armor to pull him down to her height and kissed him with every bit of passion she could muster, which was a rather pitiful amount after the day--the week--she'd had. He returned the kiss very gently, keeping his hands at his sides so their lips were the only point of contact.

"I love you," she whispered against his lips as he pulled away too soon.

He loomed over her, close but not quite touching. "I have wanted to hear you say that for a long time, but you are shit for timing, Caitie."

She laughed, a wheezy and fractured sound. "I know. I should have told you a lifetime ago. I'm sorry it took so long."

"I love you," Nathaniel said, hands like ghosts, almost but not quite there. "Maker's blood, I wish I could touch you. I don’t want to hurt you."

"Then touch me, Nate." She took his hands and brought them to her sides. "I'm not that fragile. I won't shatter."

He pulled her against him and buried his face in her shoulder. It burned, but she didn't care. She clung tighter, buried her fingers in his long hair and breathed in the familiar scent of him.

"The screaming was horrible," he whispered into her hair, voice fractured and pained, "but the silence was worse. Every time, I was afraid that you'd… that I'd never see you again."

A sound escaped Cait's throat that was dangerously close to a sob and she pushed him back until she could see his face. She found his hand and pressed it to her cheek. "I am right here. We're both here and alive, and we're safe and we're together. Okay? Concentrate on that." She was crying and she hated it, but she couldn't make it stop, and then he was too and they collapsed to the floor by their bedroom door and held each other through it.

Eventually, once they'd collected themselves again, he helped her undress. Then he helped her bathe. The bath had long gone cold by the time they got to it, but it helped to numb and soothe her skin. There was a lot of blood on her, but under it they couldn't find any new scars, any incisions or punctures from needles, not even the burns from the ropes they bound her with. Cait didn't know what was worse: that they'd healed them all to hide what they'd done, or that they used something in the torture they inflicted that didn't leave any visible mark.

The only evidence at all that anything had been done to her were a series of tiny red marks, each smaller than a pin prick but covering most of her body. As if something had been drawn from her or forced into her through her pores. Neither option was a pleasant one. At least it explained why it hurt to be touched, and hopefully meant it was something that would heal with time.

Sleep came in fits and starts. The sheets may as well have been made of broken glass for all the comfort Cait found in them. Twice, she awoke screaming, the Architect’s slow, hissing voice in her ear and intense stabbing pain in her ribs. Several times, Nathaniel woke up, just to make sure she was still there; he didn’t intend to wake her, but his hands on her, gentle as they were, always drew her back to wakefulness. He pressed his face to her chest, listening to her heartbeat, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing, needing that proof that she was still alive and real.

Sometime in the predawn hours, both of them exhausted but neither asleep, Cait pressed herself against Nathaniel and kissed him hungrily. She expected him to refuse her, as tired and broken as they both were, but he needed her too and met her halfway, something vulnerable and fascinated in his eyes as he moved beneath her.

It hurt, but in a good way, in a way that told her she was still alive, a deep and satisfying ache that chased all the other pain away for a while. When they were both sated, it was her cries and not her screams that awaited Nate in his dreams, and instead of the Architect, Cait heard Nathaniel’s deep, warm voice in her ear, and they were finally able to sleep.

\-------

The next day dawned bright and clear and troubled. Cait finally climbed out of bed just before noon, found some clothes loose enough that they didn’t rub her skin, and joined her Wardens, plus Varel, Zevran, and Leliana, in the war room.

Velanna was there, looking tired but alive, and Cait could feel her in the chorus in her blood along with the others. She still stayed near Sigrun, an ease in her posture when they were close that Velanna didn’t have around anyone else. Cait wished she knew what had happened in the week she was missing that had brought them together.

When no one seemed willing to start, Cait spoke up, voice cracked but no longer broken. “So do we want to start with the good news?”

"One less piece on the board," Anders said cheerfully, eyes serious and worried and watching Cait closely for any sign of pain.

"It is too bad we didn't get a chance to question Esmerelle," Leliana said, circling the room slowly. "I would have liked to know if she really had been working with the Architect.”

“The timing of her arrival was a little too perfect to have been coincidence,” Loghain said gruffly.

“It would explain why she brought so few soldiers with her,” Sigrun piped up. “If she was expecting all of us to still be locked up.”

“I was only in her employ for a few days, it’s true, but she seemed to me just another power hungry noble with more money than sense,” Zevran mused. “If she was taking orders from darkspawn, she never mentioned it to me.”

“Would she have?” Cait asked coyly. “Just how far into her _good graces_ did you get?”

Zev laughed. “Please! Even I have standards, my dear.”

“At least now we know what the Architect is,” Nathaniel growled. “I think I liked it better when we thought it was a Warden.”

“It’s working with Wardens, though,” Oghren said. “There was a dwarf woman in Warden armor working for it. She never said anything. Heard it call her Utha.”

“And it’s got my sister,” Velanna said sourly.

“How does the Architect convince them to work with it?” Leliana stopped her pacing and leaned against the wall next to Loghain. “Is it brainwashing them? Blackmail? Is it simply very persuasive?”

“It didn’t seem especially persuasive to me,” Cait said. A dozen overly sympathetic pairs of eyes turned her way. She ignored them. “It wasn’t torturing me. At least, that wasn’t the intention. It wasn’t trying to get information from me, or blackmail my friends, or break my spirit so I’d take orders. It was… _experimenting_ on me.”

“What kind of experiments?” Loghain asked in the silence that followed her statement.

“I wasn’t awake for most of it, but I think… I think it’s trying to stop the cycle. Break the darkspawn free from the call of the archdemon.” She met his eyes and held them. “It wants to know how I survived the death of the archdemon.”

“Then it has the wrong target. It’s been after the wrong person this whole damn time.”

“No one really knows what happened up there,” Leliana said gently. She covered Loghain’s hand with hers, and he relaxed just slightly. “It would be easy for one to assume it was Caitie who killed it, if all they have to go on is rumor.”

“How _did_ you both survive the archdemon?” Nathaniel asked into the silence.

Cait kept her eyes locked to Loghain’s. They knew they’d have to talk about it sooner or later, but she didn’t want to mention his part in it if she could help it; he had saved her life with that ritual, the least she could do is spare his dignity. “Blood magic. A ritual Morrigan found in her mother’s grimoire. I don’t know much about it, but we swore to her we’d keep it a secret. I feel like I’ve already said too much.”

“You let the Witch of the Wilds cast blood magic on you and you didn’t ask what it was?” Anders laughed.

“I _asked_ a lot of things. I still don’t understand the answers. I don’t understand magic.” Cait shrugged, then cringed as it made pain ripple across her skin. “But I trust Morrigan. She wouldn’t have deliberately caused me harm. And we’re still here, so whatever she did worked.”

“We are also getting off topic,” Loghain said.

Cait’s nightmares last night had at least served to help her figure out what had been done to her in that mine, had played it out over and over in sound and color. Her voice shook as she spoke of it. “The Architect took a lot of blood. Pulled it out through my skin with magic unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” She paused, took a deep breath. “I’m worried it did something to me. Weaponized the taint, maybe, or accelerated it. Something feels off, and not just because I was tortured.”

“Avernus might be able to tell you something,” Leliana said. She stepped away from Loghain and circled the room to Cait and took her hand. “Once we take care of this, you should go see him. It cannot hurt.”

It could and likely _would_ hurt, but Cait didn’t say that. She was pretty sure Avernus and the Architect had a similar approach to scientific experimentation and she was not eager to be on another operating table. But Leliana was also probably right, so she just nodded. 

“If the Architect is after what we think it is, it’s going to know soon that it had the wrong target,” Nate said slowly, eyes distant in thought. “If it doesn’t know already.”

“Then it’ll probably come here once it figures it out,” said Sigrun. “We should prepare for a siege.”

“It will not breach the walls of the Vigil,” Justice said plainly. “It will attempt subterfuge or coercion before risking a frontal assault.”

“It will send my sister to parlay,” Velanna said angrily. “Try to use her to draw me out and use _me_ to draw you out. Like in the forest.”

“Maybe,” Oghren said. “But maybe not. If I wanted to drag an enemy out of hiding, I’d find a weak point. Maybe that’s _your_ sister,” he pointed at Velanna, then at Nathaniel, “but maybe it’s _yours_. There’s a city full of innocent people less than a day from here and a lot less fortified.”

The whole room fell silent at that, considering the implications. 

“Well, shit,” said Anders eventually, breaking the pall over the room.

Cait sighed and leaned heavily on the table for a second, thinking. “Okay. Varel, I need whatever soldiers you’ve got ready to go. Double patrols between here and Amaranthine, scouts, whatever you’ve got.”

“As you say.”

“Loghain, I need you to write to your daughter. See if she’s got soldiers to spare. If they attempt to split our focus between the city and the keep, I need enough people to hold both.” She considered a second, then added, “And see if she can get her husband off his ass to be a Warden again, even if just temporarily. Have her tell him I’m calling in a favor, if he’s pigheaded about it.”

He smiled humorlessly. They both knew exactly how pigheaded Alistair could be. “Yes, Commander.”

“I want to know who this Utha is. If she was a Warden, she’ll be in the archives at Weisshaupt. Someone convince the First Warden to part with them.”

“I can do that,” Anders said gleefully. “I’ve got a few questions for the old bastard anyway.”

“I want to know what the Architect is, too. Nathaniel’s already got some contacts looking, but I need information sooner rather than later. Anything you can find. I want to know what I’m up against.”

“I have some ideas of where we can start looking,” Leliana said.

“And I need healing,” she said last, the words hard to force out over the lump in her throat. “Magic isn’t working. I need something else, and fast. If they march on us tomorrow, Ser Pounce-a-Lot will be better with a blade than I will.”

“I have some suggestions,” Zevran said quietly, something in his voice Cait couldn’t quite place.

“So do I,” Velanna added.

“Is it really that bad?” Sigrun asked. “You look like you’re holding up pretty well to me.”

Cait held up her hand, the one that wasn’t still clasped in Leliana’s. It shook alarmingly. “I am being held together by spite and pride and not much else,” she said honestly. “I could fight better at twelve years old than I could right now.” She sighed again and gripped the edge of the table until her hand stopped shaking. “Dismissed. Move quickly. We’re on borrowed time as it is.”

They filtered out until it was only Cait, Leliana, Loghain, and Nathaniel in the room; it was starting to feel familiar, the four of them gathered like this.

“I did not want to alarm the others, in case I was wrong,” Leliana said slowly, shutting the door to give them some privacy, “but I think I might know what the Architect is.”

“She was up all night pouring over books,” Loghain murmured, watching Leliana as she walked across the room to a side table and started flipping through papers.

“Mmm, and how would you know that,” Cait said slyly.

“How indeed,” he said, but his cheeks were red.

“Oh, hush,” Leliana said playfully, then handed Cait a piece of parchment. “Here.”

She skimmed it quickly. “The Chant of Light? Really?”

Leliana smiled and pointed at a passage about halfway down the page. “Yes, really. Start here. Canticle of Silence.”

Cait read aloud from the page. “The High Priest of Beauty, Architect of the Works of Beauty, designed every work and wonder of the Imperium according to the plans of his god. To him, the Conductor went in secret, armed with the whisper of Silence.” She paused and looked up at Leliana, alarmed, but she just nodded toward the paper for her to keep reading. “But the High Priest of Beauty was sorely troubled, for he served only the Great Plans and would in no wise raise a servant of Silence above himself or his god. And yet, the fire in the Conductor's heart ignited within the Architect a terrible flame. And so he turned all the lesser priests and acolytes from the Temple of Beauty to beseech counsel from his god.”

Cait dropped the paper to the table. She was shaking again, barely able to keep on her feet from the force of it. Awed and terrified, she whispered, “He’s one of the first darkspawn. One of the magisters that corrupted the Golden City. Blight and damnation, I… I can’t fight _that_.”

Loghain barked a laugh, loud and bitter. “I think I’ll retire once we’re done here, before you attract the attention of something even bigger.”

Nathaniel pulled Cait into a hug and she buried her face against his chest, fighting to keep her breathing steady and even. “We’ll figure it out, Caitie. Everything dies if you stab it enough.”

“Thank you, Leliana,” Cait said, voice muffled in Nate’s shirt. “I’m glad we know what we’re really up against, as terrifying as it is. It makes me even more concerned about what it may have done to me, though.”

“We will figure that out, too,” Leliana said, stroking her back comfortingly. “Together. It is what we do.”

“I know.” This room felt too small, more crowded with four of them than it had been with a dozen. Cait slipped out of Nathaniel’s arms and toward the door. “I need some air.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the reason Leliana wasn't invited to Awakening is because she was a Chantry sister and would have read the passages about the Architect and the other magisters previously and ruined Corypheus's reveal. That's my story and I'm sticking with it


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cait was too weak to climb her tree, but just sitting beneath it steadied her nerves and helped her cope with the new information she was faced with.

Cait was too weak to climb her tree, but just sitting beneath it steadied her nerves and helped her cope with the new information she was faced with.

She was not an especially religious woman. She recognized that faith was a powerful thing, that it helped many people to find hope and purpose and strength, but that had never been for her. Finding Andraste's ashes hadn't changed that; Andraste had been a real woman, a powerful one who had shaped nations and changed the course of history. That was fact, whether or not she believed that the Maker had really been guiding her.

But if the first darkspawn were real, then what else in the Chant was real? Had they really entered the Fade and corrupted the Golden City? Were they cursed by the Maker, or was it something else that had made the Architect and its brethren into the creatures they were today? How much was allegory and how much was truth?

If the Architect still lived, did the others? Seven magisters had become the first darkspawn; how many were still around?

Too many questions without answers. Cait would go mad if she kept stewing on it. She leaned against the ash tree, closed her eyes, and fought to clear her mind.

"Can I join you?" Velanna asked, and Cait looked up at her and nodded, grateful for the distraction. She sat down beside her against the tree.

"Welcome to the order, Velanna," Cait said. "I'm glad you made it through the Joining. I'm sorry I couldn't be there."

"Yes, well, it's hardly your fault everyone keeps trying to kill you," Velanna said flippantly. She rushed through her next words nervously. "I made you some potions. Your apothecary is better stocked than I expected for a shemlen fortress, but I think basic potions and poultices won't help you any more than magic does."

"No," Cait admitted. "Poultices certainly aren't doing any good."

"Right." Velanna opened a large bag she had brought with her and pulled out a vial full of pearlescent green liquid. "So this is a dreamless sleep draught. It won't help with the pain, but it will let you sleep." Next she pulled out a small, fragrant pouch of herbs. "This is a tea for you to drink in the mornings. It will help restore the blood you've lost and regain your strength." She held up a tiny vial full of something dense and dark. “And this is a rejuvenation potion. If the Architect attacks us before you're ready, this should steady you and give you the energy to wield a blade. You'll crash hard a few hours later. Don't take it until you need it.”

“Wow. Velanna, this is amazing. Thank you.” Cait looked over the array, awestruck. “That was fast.”

“It is not difficult if you know what you’re doing,” she shrugged, but the tips of her ears turned pink. “Why did you let me join your Wardens?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t have?” Cait asked. She hadn’t even considered a different possibility.

Velanna turned to face her, voice intense and demanding. “You don’t know me. I spoke with the others, when we were in… in that _cage_.” She sneered at the memory, but didn’t let it slow her speech. “You traveled with them first. Fought with them, learned that you could trust them before you recruited them. You did not have that opportunity with me.”

Cait shrugged. She had thought it was obvious. “No, but my friends did. I noticed the way you and Anders fought together. The regard you and Sigrun have for each other. The way Nate trusted you to guard me as we were making our escape. I’m reckless, but I’m not stupid.” She watched Velanna, curious. “Why did you want to join my Wardens? Obviously you want to save your sister, but you could have found a way to do that without binding yourself to a bunch of humans.”

“There are worse fates,” Velanna said dryly. “Not many, but some.” Cait laughed, and the twist of Velanna’s mouth became something close to a true smile. She did that bird-like head tilt again. “Your clanmates speak well of you. Especially in the things they don’t say. And maybe I see the same thing you did. A… kindred spirit.”

Ah, there it was. Cait knew she’d read her right. “Did your clan always tell you that you were too angry? Too proud? That’s what my people always say about me.”

“Ugh, yes.” Velanna leaned against the tree again, staring up into the shifting leaves. “‘Not everything is a battle you need to fight, Velanna. Learn to let things go.’ If I don’t fight for my right to be heard, who will?”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Cait said fiercely. “Refusing to quietly comply is not a flaw.”

They sat in silence and watched people mill around the courtyard. The merchant refugees were packing up to finish their journey to Amaranthine. They were all very carefully not looking at the Dalish elf that had brought them here in the first place. 

Nathaniel and Sigrun weaved through them, helping load crates and keep order. The day was hot and humid, now summer in truth, and it had to be backbreaking work; Cait was tempted to offer to help, but she knew they’d refuse her, so instead she just admired them. Her eyes mostly followed Nate, obviously, shirtless and glistening as he was in the midday sun, but Sigrun painted quite the lovely picture as well. Her shirt clung to her from the heat, displaying the impressive muscles in her arms and back, and her smile was bright and easy.

“What do her facial markings mean?” Velanna asked quietly. “I do not want to offend her by asking, and I do not know much about dwarven culture.”

“They’re clan markings, I think. She’s a member of the Legion of the Dead, many of them choose to tattoo their faces in similar ways when they join,” Cait said, trying not to sound too meddlesome and risk ruining the moment. “You could ask her about it, you know. I think she wouldn’t mind, if it's you.”

“I want to know _everything_ about her,” Velanna whispered.

Cait nudged her in the side. “Then go talk to her. Offer to help move boxes. Compliment her, ask her about herself. She’ll be receptive.”

Velanna didn’t take much convincing and walked away to do exactly that. Cait watched her stride determinedly up to Sigrun and then let her eyes wander over the assembled crowd again. Perhaps inevitably, she made her way back to watching Nathaniel, only to find he was already watching her. Her lips curled in a slow, pleased smile. It still felt like breaking the rules, to admire him so openly like this. To know that everyone in this keep knew that he was hers, to know that she could go over there and kiss him, right here in front of everyone and the Maker.

He must have seen what she was thinking because he started weaving his way through the crowd toward her. She saw a few people glance his way, little knowing smiles as they saw where he was headed, and then she stopped noticing anyone but Nate.

He knelt before her and kissed her, unhurried and sweet. His skin was warm from the sun and she could have lost herself in it if not for their audience. His quiet laugh against her lips as he pulled away told her he knew it, too.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, settling into the space Velanna had just vacated.

“Better than yesterday. I feel like that’s not saying much." She shrugged. She was starting to become very aware of how often she did that, every time making her shirt rasp uncomfortably against her skin. "I think I’ve accepted the new information we learned this morning."

He took her hand, threaded their fingers together carefully. "It’s good to know what we’re up against, even if it’s so much bigger than we imagined."

"You’re right, though," she said. "Anything dies if you stab it enough. I’ll just have to keep stabbing until it stops moving."

He chuckled. "There's the Caitie Cousland I know."

She looked out over the courtyard again. "They made fast work of cleaning up Esmerelle’s mess. You wouldn’t even know it happened." There was no sign there had ever been bodies there last night; not even a drop of blood lingered in the grass. It was a bit disturbing, in truth.

He hummed in agreement. "I’m glad we don’t have to worry about the wolves at our backs anymore. Political posturing seems trivial next to the other threats we’re facing."

"True." A gratified smile twisted her lips, and she added teasingly, "It’s too bad it was over so quickly. I enjoyed seeing that side of you. All that poise. All that _venom_. It was sexy." She leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "One of these days, I’m going to get you to talk to me like that in bed."

He smiled, wicked and inviting. "I suppose this would be a good time to mention that I find the tone you use when you’re giving orders very _enticing_."

"I think we made a mistake having this conversation in the courtyard," she said, trying and failing to sound casual. Her hand found the bare skin of his back, almost of its own accord. "I’m liable to cause a scene."

"You’re the Arlessa. I think you’re allowed to," he murmured, leaning toward her as if compelled.

"Don’t tempt me, Nathaniel Howe," she warned. She struggled to hold herself in check, to let him come to her.

"As you wish. Commander," he said against her lips.

"Vexing," she said fondly. "Impossible."

"I love you too."

She kissed him then, unable to resist. He kept her reigned in, guiding her with a hand on the back of her head to keep the kiss something almost chaste. Desire settled under her skin, hotter than the summer sun, and she had to break away before she let it consume them both like wildfire.

"Do you think anyone would notice if we snuck off?" she whispered, broken voice gone husky and dark.

"Definitely." Nathaniel couldn't seem to take his eyes off her lips. "Do you care?"

"Less and less with every passing second."

Someone cleared their throat loudly from nearby. Cait hid her face in Nathaniel's shoulder; the heat of his skin did nothing to bank the fire under hers.

"Don’t you both have work to do?" Loghain said, but Cait could hear the slightest edge of amusement in his voice.

"Probably." Cait sighed and dragged herself to her feet, ignoring Nate and Loghain's offers to help.

"He's right," Nathaniel said reluctantly. "The sooner we get those carts loaded, the better. I'll see you later?"

"You're blighted right you will." She pulled him into a quick kiss and then watched him walk away.

"Looks like you've moved past your hesitations, then," Loghain said dryly, once Nate was gone.

Cait grinned and said cheerfully, "You’re such a blighted hypocrite, Loghain."

"Am I."

"Leliana wears a lovely perfume, doesn’t she. It’s very unique. I had it commissioned for her in Denerim some months ago." His expression became more sour with every word she said and her smile grew wider as it did. "It suits you."

"Very funny." His glare may have frightened nobles and rookie soldiers, but she wasn't even fazed by it anymore. "Some days I don’t know why I still tolerate you."

"Oh, you know you love me. I’m the best friend you’ve had since Maric died," she said, the words easier than they'd ever been before, "and I’ve never had a friend like you."

"I know." His expression softened a little. "Do you intend to make your way around the keep making heartfelt declarations until someone lets you out of work, then?"

"I’m actually hoping my heartfelt declarations will convince someone to actually let me do some work." She crossed her arms over her chest, prepared for resistance. "I’m not broken. If I have to keep sitting around and dwelling on what happened to me, I’m liable to do something reckless just so I don’t have to think anymore."

"You've only been back a day, Cait," he said gently. "It will take time to recover."

"I _know_ that." She grabbed his arm, hoping to convey that it was more than just boredom behind her words. She knew he understood. Loghain, Zevran, Leliana, she knew they'd all been through similar ordeals; one of them had to have a better way for her to deal with this than just sitting around. "I'm not planning to pick any fights or work myself ragged. I just need to do _something_."

Loghain nodded toward the keep. "Well, then let's find something less dangerous to occupy your time, then."

\-------

Cait ended up at the forge with Wade and Harren, cutting leather strips to wrap sword hilts and make straps and lining for armor. It wasn’t especially difficult work, but involved enough to keep her attention and keep her mind in the present. She watched the people in the courtyard as she worked. Once the carts were loaded and on their way, the atmosphere changed to something heavier. Everyone moved purposefully, training or inventorying or carrying things. As the sun was setting and she stepped away from the forge to head inside, she finally figured out what was so familiar about it. 

It felt like Redcliffe after the Landsmeet. The Vigil was preparing for war.

They didn’t have quite as clear a target as the archdemon and its army, didn’t know when or how an attack happen, but the energy was the same. Purpose, defiance, desperation, and just the slightest edge of fear; it all hung in the air like smoke. It settled over her shoulders like a mantle, calming her mind and steeling her spine.

Dinner was a rowdy affair. Now that the danger had passed, for the moment at least, and they had (sort of, mostly) won, drinks and conversation flowed easily and loudly. Inevitably after the plates were cleared, Leliana’s lute manifested, and then the hall was filled with music.

Cait sat in what was dubbed the “Grump Corner” by Anders, a table she shared with Loghain, Velanna, Justice, and Nathaniel. She let herself be dragged into a couple dances by Zevran and Anders, but she simply didn’t have the energy for festivity. She was content to watch, warmed by the company and the Antivan brandy Zev had brought. She harmonized with the songs she knew; she certainly wasn’t as skilled as Leliana, but their voices blended well, and some of the others joined in occasionally. Then Anders picked up the lute after Leliana set it down, enthusiastic but just a little out of tune, and things just got rowdier.

It was very late when she snuck off to bed. Some of the others stayed up, drinking and laughing and gambling, but Cait’s need for sleep won out over her need for community. Nathaniel followed her, which didn’t surprise her. Zevran also followed her, which did.

As they stopped at her bedroom door, Zev held up a jar full of a hazy blue liquid. “A gift for you. May I come in?”

“Of course.” She nodded and held the door for the three of them to enter.

Once the door was shut behind them, he held the jar out to her again. It was probably ungracious of her to be suspicious, but she was; she knew he didn’t intend her harm, but he rarely approached any situation with only one motive. Still, she was curious. 

She popped the lid off the jar and dipped her finger into it; it came out coated in a viscous oil. It was warm and smelled like vanilla and something floral. “Is this massage oil?”

Zevran’s smile was warm and playful, entirely too pleased with himself. “You have a good eye. You said you need something to help with the pain, yes? May I?”

Her eyes flicked up to Nate, but he just nodded, no sign of possessiveness or awkwardness, so she nodded as well.

“I have waited a long time to say this,” Zevran said in a low purr. “I need you to undress for me, Caitie.”

She shoved him away and he laughed wickedly. “Maker’s blood, Zev, don’t make it weird.”

“I am sorry, my dear,” he said, still laughing, “I could not help myself.”

Still, she acquiesced to his request, pulling her shirt off and, after only a slight hesitation, her breast band too. Zevran had seen her naked before; privacy had never been an option when they traveled together, all of them living on top of each other in their little nomadic tent village. Cait had neither the energy nor the desire to be modest or bashful about her body.

He gave her a cursory once over, nothing sexual about it, then pulled the stool from in front of the washbasin to the middle of the room and motioned for her to sit. She did.

"I think I see what's wrong," Zevran said quietly from somewhere behind her. "Healing magic and potions do a fine job of keeping us alive, but sometimes something is done to you that your body does not want to forget. A man who loses an arm still feels the shadow of it."

"So it's just lingering effects of the experiments she endured?" Nathaniel asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. "How do you fix that?"

"Give the body something else to remember."

"Did you figure that out from personal experience?" Cait asked, looking over her shoulder to see what Zevran was doing. She couldn't see him anywhere.

"I did," he said, right in her ear. She jumped. "It started very much like this. A room full of handsome assassins. I think my night ended very differently than it will tonight." He disappeared behind her again. "Do try to relax, my dear. I won't do anything you're uncomfortable with."

His hands rested on her shoulders, letting her get used to it. The warmth of the oil, or maybe one of the ingredients in it, had a numbing quality, and the relief was immediate and astounding. It was the first time in days it didn't hurt to be touched.

He was very good with his hands. That wasn't surprising. She'd known it already, on a more empirical level, but experiencing it first hand was something else. She definitely understood how easy it could be to turn this into seduction; a slower caress, a more deliberate press of deft fingers, could turn it into something alluring and erotic. Zevran didn't do that, though. His touch was warm and firm, but that's all it was. No ulterior motives.

Nathaniel watched Zev's hands glide over her skin, openly fascinated. “Can you teach me?”

“Perhaps,” Zevran said, after considering for a moment. “I bet he’s a fast learner, hmm?”

Cait smiled, slow and smug, but didn’t say anything.

“You must have other ways you’d rather spend your evenings,” Nate added.

“Oh, but think of the rumors we could make!” Zevran laughed, loud in the small room. “I am kidding, of course. Those rumors already exist. Cait is a _very_ busy woman, if you believe what people say.”

“Zev,” Cait said, gently chastising, “stop teasing him.”

After Zevran left, Cait lounged in bed, tranquil and blissfully painless. She was going to buy him whatever he wanted. The best Antivan leather money could buy, gold, jewels, a house. She’d make him the blighted bann of Amaranthine if he wanted. It would be worth it, for just this moment of complete painlessness.

Nathaniel took his time getting ready for bed, moving the stool back to the washbasin and putting away the massage oil.

“Nathaniel,” she purred lazily. “Come to bed, my love.”

He paused in the process of taking off his shirt. “I will never get tired of hearing you say that.”

“My love,” she said again. “I love you, Nate. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said as he finally joined her in bed. “You sound drunk.”

Cait giggled. “I feel a bit drunk.” She ran her hands over his chest and up into his hair. “I feel really good. I want to make you feel this good, Nate.”

Nathaniel chuckled warmly, but he leaned down so she could kiss him. “Go to sleep, Caitie.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” she whispered. She knew what waited for her in her sleep, but while awake she had Nate, who was naked and handsome and who loved her. “I can’t kiss you when I’m asleep.”

“I’ll still be here when you wake up.” He kissed her again, but pulled away when she tried to pull him closer.

“I don’t want to sleep,” she said again, no longer feeling content or relaxed.

Nathaniel settled over her, pinning her lightly to the bed. It wasn’t the way she wanted him to, but his weight and the solid presence of him helped steady her nerves. Gently, he said, “You have to sleep sooner or later. Didn’t Velanna give you some potions to help?” 

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then we’ll find something else.” He touched her face, keeping her eyes on his. “It will never lay a hand on you again. I swear.”

“I know.” Cait closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This helps. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” She opened one eye to peek up at his face. “You still won’t have sex with me, will you.”

“Not tonight.” He kissed her nose. “But I’m open to the idea in the morning.”

\-------

The days passed in a flurry of preparation. Weapons and armor were made and distributed, food stores were increased in case of a prolonged siege, letters were written and received at an alarming rate. There was always someone in the war room, planning and taking stock and giving orders. They didn’t know what was going to happen, but damned if they weren’t going to be ready for whatever it was.

Cait’s voice came back first, and the pain finally faded away a few days later. Her strength was much slower to recover, too slow for her tastes. She spent her time, when she wasn’t meeting with generals and captains and banns, training with whoever was willing to fight her. Nathaniel or Loghain most often, but Leliana, Zevran, Sigrun, and sometimes even Oghren got in on the action, sparring with her until she was exhausted. It took a little longer each time, but after a week she still wasn’t up to where she’d been before. The only person she managed to beat was Anders, at least until he cheated and used magic, but that wasn’t exactly a fair fight either way.

A week and a half after they had escaped from the Architect’s mine, a company of soldiers arrived at the gate of the Vigil, dressed in very shiny armor and bearing the double mabari crest of the royal family. Cait’s stomach dropped to her knees when she saw the king himself commanded them, wearing not his fancy golden armor but his battered silver and blue Warden plate.

Alistair caught her eye as she stepped out to greet them. It was hard to read his face from this far away, but he didn’t look disgusted to see her again. Not happy, certainly, but less resentful than when she’d seen him last. She squared her shoulders and marched down to him.

“Warden-Commander,” he said tersely as soon as she was within earshot.

She bit back a sigh. It was going to be like that, then. She bowed, only a little more dramatically than necessary. “Your Majesty.”

Alistair rolled his eyes. “All right. I get your point. No titles today, please.” Softly, hesitantly, he added, “Hi Cait.”

“Hi Alistair. I didn’t think you’d come.” She plucked at the stitching on her sleeves nervously.

“Neither did I,” he said dryly. “My wife can be very persuasive, as I’m sure you’re aware. She threatened to come help you herself if I didn’t.”

“That sounds like her.” Cait smiled in spite of herself. She was very fond of Anora, likely for the same reasons she was fond of her father. “She’s doing well then? You both are? I haven’t had much time to write.”

“So I hear. New breeds of darkspawn? That _talk_? I don’t think that’s in the handbook anywhere.” Alistair paused, and his lips curled into a small smile too. “And yes. She’s good. She’s… with child.”

“She’s… Maker’s blood, Alistair, you work fast, don’t you?” She chuckled, but bit her lip to stop from saying more; she had know idea how to act around him anymore. He had done a remarkable job avoiding her entirely for the months she’d been living in the palace. “Sorry, that was out of line, wasn’t it? But congratulations. Really. You’ll be a great dad.”

“Thank you,” he told the ground, unable to meet her eye anymore. “What about you? Are you… good? Happy?”

“I’m trying to be. I don’t know what…” she stopped herself from saying Loghain’s name, if only just “what the letter you received mentioned, but I was captured by the leader of these smart darkspawn. It’s much worse than we thought it was going to be.”

“How much worse can it be? You already killed the archdemon.”

“I think it may be worse than the archdemon, Alistair,” she said quietly. “Can we take this inside?”

He stared at her, openly shocked and curious. Eventually, he nodded and she led him to the war room. It was conspicuously empty; there was a pile of papers and a half-empty mug of coffee near a chair in the corner. Loghain had been in here, then, and cleared out once he heard Alistair was here. Good. No need to have that reunion just yet.

“Nice place,” Alistair said, walking slowly around the room. “So what’s this threat bigger than the archdemon?”

She explained as succinctly as she could what had been happening the last three months and what she knew about the Architect and the Mother.

He nodded once she was done. “Okay. That’s terrifying. Good to know, I guess. What do you need me to do?”

Cait sagged with relief and tried to cover it up by leaning over the map laid out on the table. “If we’re lucky, nothing. You’ll just get a nice vacation to the rainiest place in Ferelden while I stab the Architect several dozen times and then you can go back to your comfortable castle and your pretty wife and your baby on the way. If we’re unlucky, I’d like you to bring your soldiers to defend the city. Loghain will lead my people here at the Vigil. There’s less of us, but with the keep’s walls we won’t need as many.”

Alistair’s face went hard at the sound of the general’s name, just like she’d known it would. This had still been the longest they’d been in a room without fighting in the better part of a year. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he leads your soldiers. Sure he won’t leave us to die again?”

Cait clenched her jaw until she could feel her teeth creaking under the strain. “Well, he follows my orders, so if that happened, if wouldn’t be _his_ decision, would it?” She realized how easily that might come across as a threat of regicide, so she exhaled slowly through her nose to try and calm down. “You knew he was here, Alistair. He’s been here for weeks. Anora must have told you.”

“She did.” He looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be angry or sad, so he settled somewhere in between. “I guess I was hoping I could just avoid him until it was time to leave.”

“Not if we’re going to work together on this. He’s my second in command, Alistair.” _Like you were supposed to be_ ; she didn’t say it but it echoed in the space anyway.

“I know.” He leaned on the table across from her. “I promised Anora I’d try to give him a chance. To give you both a chance.” Cait didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. “Do you regret it? Choosing him over me?”

That wasn’t what had happened. She hadn’t made that choice, Alistair had; he’d chosen Duncan and vengeance over her and the Grey Wardens. “No,” she said painfully. “I regret that we couldn’t talk about it before making a decision, that we had to have that blighted fight in front of every noble in Ferelden. I made a lot of sacrifices to stop the Blight. One of those was our friendship. I know that, and I have to live with it.”

She looked down at the map, unable to meet the pain in his eyes anymore. “But I think… I think if it had been you and me against the archdemon instead, one of us would be dead. Maybe both of us. We had to make some dark decisions to end things like we did, and I don’t think you’d have been willing to make the same choice. I think there’s no outcome that would have happened where you would still want to be my friend.” She glanced up and gave him a watery smile. “At least this way you’re still alive to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Caitie. Maker knows it would be easier if I did. I’m not even sure I hate _him_ anymore.” Alistair came around the table and leaned next to her. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive him for what he did.”

Cait wasn’t sure she would be able to forgive Alistair either, for abandoning her, but she didn’t say it. She just said, “I know.”

“But maybe… once all this Ancient Terrifying Darkspawn business is over,” he said hesitantly, “you could… come visit. You and Loghain. Anora would probably like to see her dad again. And we can just… see how it goes?”

“I’d like that,” she whispered. “Thank you, Alistair.”

“So should we hug now? Is this a hugging thing? Would that be weird?”

She laughed with relief and wrapped her arms around him. “Am I allowed to do this? Do kings get hugged by random arls?”

“Thankfully, no, but I’ll make an exception just this once.” He held her a little too tight, but she couldn’t bring herself to mind.

They only pulled apart at the sound of the door opening. “There you are,” Nathaniel said. “Leliana said I might find you here. I didn’t realize you had company.”

“I wanted to introduce you, anyway. Alistair Theirin meet Nathaniel Howe.”

“I… admit I’m at a bit of a disadvantage,” Nate said slowly. “Should I bow? Address you as Your Highness?”

“Please don’t,” Alistair said quickly, offering a hand to shake instead. “Did you say Howe?”

“I did,” Cait said, bracing herself for another fight.

“Huh. Same one you told me about before?” Maker’s blood, _before_ was such a heavy word when he said it like that. Still, she nodded, and Alistair added, “So are you two still…?”

She rolled her eyes. “We are, yes. However you planned to end that sentence, I’m pretty sure the answer’s yes.”

“Good. Nice to know you could work past the whole… patricide thing.”

“Well put, my liege,” Cait deadpanned.

“You only do that because you know I hate it,” Alistair said quietly.

“Of course not, Your Majesty. I am simply giving you the deference you deserve as king.” Cait was having a lot of trouble keeping a straight face.

“I hate you,” he said, and for the first time he didn’t sound like he meant it. “Fine! Point me at who I need to talk to to find bunks for all the soldiers I brought with me. Do you have a barracks here?”

“I’ll go find Varel. He’d be the one to ask,” Nathaniel said, looking back and forth curiously between Cait and Alistair. 

She grabbed his hand before he could turn to leave and pulled him into a quick kiss. “Later,” she whispered.

He nodded and slipped back out the door without another word.

“So when’s the wedding?” Alistair asked, a familiar grin on his face. “Am I invited?”

“Do you _want_ to be invited?” Cait asked, surprised.

He thought about it a moment. “I guess I do. How about that.”

“Then of course you are.” She blushed as soon it hit her what they were talking about, and then got angry at her body for betraying her embarrassment like that. “Not that we’ve picked a date or anything. Or even gotten engaged. Or talked about it at all, really.”

“Very eloquent,” Alistair said wryly.

Nate returning, Varel in tow, saving her from having the say anything in reply, but she knew she hadn’t heard the end of it. As Nathaniel came to stand next to her, hand resting between her shoulder blades, Alistair gave her an exaggerated wink and she giggled before she could stop herself and for just a second, things were okay.


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things didn’t stay okay. They never did.

Things didn’t stay okay. They never did.

Alistair and Loghain’s first meeting went explosively, spectacularly wrong to the point where Cait had to draw blades on both of them to keep them from dueling in the main hall. Only when she made it very clear that she’d send them away, Architect be damned, if they kept fighting did they begrudgingly settle down. They sat on opposite sides of the room, sullen and pouting like children, and didn’t say a word to her or each other.

"Do I need to assign guards to you to keep you from trying to kill my general?" she asked Alistair.

"No," he said petulantly. He sounded like he wanted to say 'yes' just to see what she'd do. "I'll behave."

She turned to Loghain. "Do I need to assign guards to you to keep you from trying to kill your son-in-law?"

"Wouldn't be the first time, would it," Alistair muttered.

"Alistair Theirin!"

"Fine!" He glared at her. She wasn't intimidated by it. She'd faced down scarier things than a surly king. "You're acting like you're my mother."

"Unsurprising, since you're acting like a _child_." She sighed and crossed her arms. She resisted the desire to start pulling her hair out in frustration. "I don't care right now if you don't like each other. If you can't work together, you can leave. I'm serious. The Architect is smart. If we're divided, it will pick us apart and throw all three of us on its blighted operating table."

Only after they'd left did she allow herself to vent a little, kicking a poor defenseless chair across the floor in frustration.

"You're going to give yourself gray hair if you don't relax," Anders said genially, feet propped up on the map table. "And we'll run out of places to sit."

"I'm already going gray," Cait said dourly. She pulled her hair back from her face so he could see the streaks of silver at her temples. They weren't visible with her short hair loose around her face; she had no idea how long they'd been there, but she was pretty sure she hadn't had them even a month ago. "What do you think? Distinguished?"

"Hmm, very dignified." He stepped into her path to stop her pacing. She hadn't even realized she'd started doing so. "Definitely hereditary and not at all stress induced."

He hugged her and she let him, leaning her head on his shoulder. Ser Pounce leaned out from his resting place in Anders' hood to sniff at her face. "Could go either way, actually. My parents both went gray young."

"Do you think they'll be all right?" Anders asked, looking at the open door and the empty hall beyond it.

Cait sighed and stepped away from him. "They won't have to be. They'll be in separate places when the fighting starts. I just need them to be civil until then. I don't have time to babysit them."

"Have Byron do it." He laughed at the skeptical look she gave him. "Really! Those two strapping examples of Ferelden masculinity wouldn't dare disappoint your _mabari_."

Cait stopped to think about it a moment. "Ugh. I hate to say it, but you're probably right."

She spoke to them each independently that evening. Alistair was still petulant and Loghain was still grumpy, but they were calmer now that they were separated and at least willing to talk to her. 

They both looked properly guilty when she mentioned Anora, united in their love for her if nothing else. Cait made a note to write to the queen and ask how heavily she could leverage her pregnancy to get her husband and father to at least pretend to be polite. Anora was a practical woman; she wouldn't be above using her children as a bargaining chip for a little domestic peace.

She was still agitated that evening. The walls of the keep pressed too close, even opening the windows to let the night in didn't help. She paced her bedroom like a caged tiger.

Nathaniel sat at the desk and watched her go. "Do you want to go for a walk?" he asked gently. "You look like you could use some air."

It was tempting. It was a nice night, the breeze just cool enough to cut through the languid heat. But Cait shook her head. The likelihood of running into another person was too high; she didn't have the capacity for polite conversation right now.

"Do you want to spar?"

"No."

"Do you want to have sex on the map table in the war room?" he asked with a playful grin.

That got her to stop pacing, at least, which was probably the point. She doubted he actually meant it, but she considered it anyway. Eventually, she said, "A little bit. Maybe not right now."

Nate stood up and walked over to her. “Then what's on your mind?”

Cait pressed her face into his shoulder and breathed him in. Things always felt less dire when he held her, like the rest of the world and all the troubles in it fell away as long as they were together. “Do you want to get married?”

He froze, barely even breathing except for a tiny, startled “What?”

“I--” she started, then groaned and backed up enough to see his face. He stared at her like he’d never seen her before. “This isn’t how I meant to ask. I had _plans_. Dramatic declarations, speeches. Grand gestures. But I guess it’s out there now.” 

Cait pulled out the small box she’d gotten from Wade that had been burning a hole in her pocket for days. It contained two matching rings of twined silverite and starmetal, shining bright blue and silver in the lantern light. Long, long before they’d ever been Grey Wardens, Cait had associated her and Nathaniel with blue and grey; in his pale blue eyes and her dark grey ones, in thunderstorms and summer twilight and the places they’d first found each other. “We talked once--recently, I guess, though Maker it feels like years since we left Kal’Hirol--about the future. And there’s no future for me that doesn’t have you in it. If the world opens up and swallows us whole, I want to be by your side while we dig our way out. I love you, Nathaniel. Marry me?”

Nathaniel started laughing. He wasn’t laughing _at_ her, she knew. The look in his eyes was far too affectionate to be anything like a rejection, but Cait couldn’t figure out what she’d said that was so funny. She thought it had been a pretty good speech, all things considered.

Still laughing, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box and presented it to her. It held a thin silverite band with beautiful, dusty blue stones set flush into the metal. It looked delicate, but it would likely hold up to anything she could put it through.

Cait stared at it incredulously. The ring stared back, glinting merrily. “Is this why you wanted to take a walk?” she asked, voice a stunned squeak.

“Yes.” Nate took the ring out of the box and twisted it in his fingers, letting it catch the light. “I was going to propose under your tree. Dramatic declarations, like you said. You have a habit of throwing off even my most thought out plans."

She could only stare in awe as he took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. "Cathain Cousland, I have loved you my whole life and will do so for as long as I live. Will you marry me?"

Cait couldn’t help but start laughing, too. They collapsed to the floor in a fit of giggles.

“What had you been planning to say before?” Nathaniel asked, leaning against the side of the bed and trying to catch his breath. “You said you hadn’t meant to ask yet.”

“I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.” She leaned next to him and linked their hands together, holding them up to admire her ring. “There were probably easier ways to cheer me up, you know.”

“I know. I planned to ask regardless.” He kissed her forehead and she tilted her head back so he could kiss her lips as well. “Cheering you up was just a bonus.”

Cait climbed into his lap and leaned over him to kiss him properly, gentle and unhurried. “I bumped into Velanna when I was picking up the rings. She offered to do a Dalish bonding ceremony for us, if you wanted to… skip the formalities.”

“Tempting.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “That isn’t too quick for you? _You_ weren’t even planning to get betrothed yet.”

“I’ve known I wanted to marry you since I was eleven. Long before I knew what all it meant. Before I convinced myself for a while that I wouldn’t be allowed to.” She touched his face, trailing her fingers along his jaw as she decided how honest to be. “I think things have been quiet too long. The Architect is going to make its move soon, I feel it. I was going to wait until after it was over. In case…”

“In case you didn’t survive it,” Nathaniel finished the sentence for her. He grabbed her face in his hands and held her eyes to his, gently demanding. “I meant it when I told you that it was never going to touch you again. I don’t care how smart or strong or old it is, it can’t have you. You are _mine_.”

“Nate…” 

She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but it didn’t matter. He kissed her firmly, a familiar stubborn set to his jaw. “Can you imagine the looks on everyone’s faces tomorrow morning?” he growled against her lips. “The confusion from the nobles pouring in when you correct them and tell them to call you Arlessa Howe?”

She pushed away from him just a little. “Don’t you dare turn this into a challenge! This is our _marriage_ we’re talking about, you can’t just provoke me into eloping!”

His smile was triumphant. “Maybe. But I did, didn’t I.”

“I’ll go get Velanna.”

\-------

The first reports of darkspawn sightings arrived before breakfast the next day.

“It sounds like they were just scouts,” Loghain said as he handed Cait the report. She skimmed it as the others kept talking.

“That is what it looks like to me as well.” Leliana put a couple of smooth wooden coins on the map where the skirmishes happened, north of the Vigil and west of the city. “Small numbers, none of them spoke. They tried to avoid our soldiers as best they could.”

“I assume none were allowed to escape and report back,” Alistair said, reading over Cait’s shoulder. “I’ve been out of the loop a while, but I doubt you’re in the habit of sparing darkspawn.”

“No,” Nathaniel growled. “We aren’t. But it’s unlikely they got them all. Farmers and infantry wouldn’t be able to sense them to pick off shrieks or other spies. Whatever information the Architect is after, we have to assume it got it.”

“Such an optimist,” Alistair said wryly. “I can see why she likes you.”

“How many of ours were injured?” Cait asked, trying to keep them on subject.

“None.” Anders shook his head. “Not even a scratch or even signs of the taint.”

“Then they’re definitely the Architect’s people,” Sigrun said. She was standing on a chair to lean over the map. “Well, _people_ is a strong word. You know what I mean. Darkspawn are swarmers. They ambush, kill or incapacitate the first target they see, then move on to the next.”

“I don’t like this,” Velanna said sourly. “If it wants to attack us, it should just do so and be done with it. I don’t like all this… subterfuge.”

“It’s hoping to catch us with our pants down,” Oghren said.

“No, I don’t think it is,” Cait said, putting the pieces together as she spoke. “If it wanted to do that, it could have done so any time in the last week, while I was still helpless.”

“Cait Cousland, helpless. That’ll be the day.” Anders laughed. “I think you and I have very different definitions of that word.”

“It’s Howe, actually,” Nathaniel said, very quietly. “Cait Howe.”

Cait fought to keep a grin off her face and failed spectacularly. “My point is, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that scouts are showing up only a day after an entire company of soldiers did.”

“It is testing you. Trying to find how much attention you are paying. Perhaps trying to draw you out,” Leliana said. As she spoke, she raised a delicate eyebrow in a second silent conversation.

Cait put her hands on the table deliberately, in answer to Leliana's silent question. The bard’s eyes dropped to the rings on her left hand. “So do I let it draw me out?”

“I don’t like the idea of you using yourself as bait.” Loghain said gruffly. His sharp eyes darted from Cait to Nathaniel and back. “I suspect you intend to do so anyway.”

“If you have a better suggestion, I am willing to listen.” She waited, but no one said anything. “Then bait it is.”

“If it’s looking for a response, then we should mobilize the army toward Amaranthine,” Nathaniel said. “That should draw it out of hiding, or at least force it to make its next move.”

“The Architect will not be with the main horde,” Zevran pointed out. “It is too smart for that.”

“Yes, but a small group could sneak around behind it,” said Sigrun. “Follow the trail of darkspawn back to their leader. Cut off the snake’s head. Figuratively speaking.”

Oghren chuckled. “Maybe literally, too, if we’re lucky.”

Cait picked up three of the wooden map marker coins, placed one on the keep, one on the city, and one in between. “Three groups, then. Loghain leading the Vigil’s company here. Varel will be with you, too, to help keep civilians in order and out of the way. Alistair will take the King’s Company to Amaranthine to protect the city. And I’ll take the fight to the Architect.”

She looked around the room, counting in her head. “We’ll split the rest of you between the three groups, I guess. Three with me, three to the city, and two more to help defend the keep. That way we’ve got at least a few Wardens in each place.”

“I’m going with you,” Nathaniel said in a voice that left no room for argument.

“So am I,” said Velanna. “I will learn what that thing has done with my sister.”

“I wish to help defend the city,” Justice declared.

Anders stared at the map. “I should stay here. Bring the wounded back to the Vigil and I’ll take care of them.”

“I will stay too,” Leliana said. “One more archer on the walls can make a big difference.”

“I’ll probably get to kill more darkspawn if I go with you, right, Cait?” Sigrun said with a grin. “Then I’ll be where the action is.”

“Then it is back to the city for me,” said Zevran.

“Heh heh, just like old times, eh?” Oghren said, elbowing Zev.

“Then that’s that,” Cait said firmly. “We’ll start at first light, unless something happens before then. Any other business before we break for the day?”

“I have an inquiry,” Anders said with a slow, sly grin.

“Does it have anything at all to do with the Architect?” Anders didn’t answer her and that was answer enough. “Does anyone have any _on-topic_ concerns?” She was met with a discordant chorus of ‘no, Commander’, so she sighed and added, “Ask your blighted question, Anders.”

“When’s the wedding?”

Cait didn't actually have an answer to that. She assumed they'd have one, even though it wasn't strictly necessary, some public ceremony full of family and friends and fancy clothes. But it hadn't come up during the whirlwind of activity last night.

She opened her mouth to say as much, but Nathaniel spoke first. "Three months from now. During the Harvest Festival."

Her eyes snapped to him in astonishment. It was such an impossibly romantic, perfect idea that she couldn't find the words to say so.

"It's only a formality," Velanna said plainly. “So was the ceremony last night, really. You humans do love your rituals.”

“That is... true, I suppose,” Cait said slowly. She was starting to get uncomfortable with all the eyes on her; this room was much too small for so much scrutiny. “Surprise?”

“It wasn’t intended to be a secret,” Nate said softly.

“It _isn’t_ a secret.” She found his hand under the table and held it tightly. “I'm impulsive, not _ashamed_."

“No need to be defensive, Caitie,” Anders said, still grinning. “We're happy for you."

“Good,” she snapped. She took a deep breath to calm herself. Why was this more stressful than planning a war? “I know. I guess I'm just practicing for when I have to tell my brother.”

Nathaniel pulled her into a hug and she let him, trying to ignore the way everyone was watching them. “Fergus will be happy for us too. Eventually.”

Cait didn’t share his optimism. Nate and Fergus had been good friends once, but her brother held grudges even worse than she did. She didn’t think he’d ever be okay with her being a Howe.

She pushed gently away from her husband. She couldn’t stand all the scrutiny anymore. “Okay, enough. We've got work to do.”

\-------

“If I don’t make it back, I want you to lead the Wardens.”

Loghain looked up from buckling his armor in place to study Cait where she stood by the door. He started to say something, but she spoke over him. “Nathaniel will take care of Amaranthine. He’s the arl now anyway, and it was always supposed to be his, but he hasn’t been a Warden long enough to be the commander.”

“He’s been one longer than you were when you got put in charge,” he said quietly.

“Extenuating circumstances,” she said lightly. No need to rehash exactly what those circumstances were. She stepped father into the room to help him with his armor. Plate armor was complicated enough that it needed a second pair of hands anyway, and it gave her an excuse not to look at him. “There’s still too much I don’t know. About the Architect, about whatever the Mother even is. I think the best I can hope for right now is mutually assured destruction.”

“Well, if you were my daughter--”

“Nope, try again,” Cait interrupted. She secured his breastplate in place and gave it an awkward little pat before finally looking up at him.

Loghain brushed her hair back from her face, a fatherly gesture no matter how much she tried to deny it. “If you were my _sister_ coming to me for advice, my much, _much_ younger sister, I would tell you that worrying about the future won’t change it. You were like this the night before we fought the archdemon, too.”

“I don’t do well when given time to think things over,” she said softly. “I get anxious and then I get sentimental.”

Loghain studied her in silence, keen eyes inscrutable. “You know, there was a time I thought the same thing about us that you do now about the Architect,” he said wryly. “That the only way the Landsmeet would end is with both of us in ashes. Yet here we are.”

“Here we are.” She couldn’t help but smile at that. “I don't expect I'll be standing in the Architect's bedroom a year from now pouring my heart out to it.”

He huffed a laugh. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Name _one_.”

“I'm going to be a grandfather.” A small, bemused smile crossed his face, making him look years younger. A glimpse at the young man Maric had known.

“Alistair told me.” Cait pressed her forehead to his. “Congratulations, Loghain.”

Loghain’s smile was gone as quick as it had come, twisting into something sour. “He's going to poison that child against me.”

She shook her head. “Anora won't let him. _I_ won't let him.”

“And if he does anyway?”

“Regicide worked out pretty well for you last time.”

Loghain laughed, probably against his better judgement. “Take care of yourself out there, Cait. Don’t let it get in your head and you’ll be fine. We can talk more when you return.”

“Careful, General. That sounded a lot like optimism,” Cait said with a grin. “But I guess stranger things have happened.”

“Name one.”

As if on cue, the door opened and Leliana stepped inside, armored and ready for war. She didn’t look surprised to find Cait there; she simply walked over and put an arm around both her and Loghain and leaned her head against theirs. They stayed that way for a while.

“You still have a little time before you leave,” Leliana said eventually. “You should spend it with your husband.”

“I know. I will. I was just making the rounds first, checking in on everyone.”

“You are doing the goodbye thing, like you did in Redcliffe. You like the drama. It was not necessary then and it is not necessary now,” Leliana’s smile was sweet but her hands were firm as she pushed Cait toward the door. “Go. Kiss your husband and sharpen your sword and kill your darkspawn. When you get back, we will do something fun, just you and me. Something that does not involve battle.”

Cait hoped she was right. She could use a little time away from war and doom for a while. She tried to hold onto the idea instead of letting dread overwhelm it. “I look forward to it.”

\-------

She knew she should take Leliana’s advice and just go back to her room, but she made one more stop on the way, at the room that had until recently been Nathaniel’s and currently housed the king of Ferelden.

“Something on your mind?” Alistair asked from the doorway. He looked tired and drawn, even though it wasn’t even sunset yet. Cait wondered what was bothering him; she was curious if he’d actually tell her if she asked.

“I was just checking in. Wanted to make sure you don’t need anything before tomorrow. Making sure things were… okay.” She linked her hands behind her back to stop fretting at her sleeves.

“I’m fine, Cait. Ready to get this over with,” he said coolly, then he flinched. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean I don’t like waiting around.”

“Neither do I,” she said quietly. “I know what you mean.”

“That’s why you’re here, I reckon.”

She nodded slowly. “I just… Be careful tomorrow. Please.”

“Is that an order, Commander?” Alistair said dryly.

“Do I need to make it one?” Cait tilted her head, studying him curiously. “I know you aren't stupid, no matter how much you try to appear so. But these aren't your run of the mill darkspawn. If you treat them like it, you'll be overrun. If you see the Architect, just run. Don't engage it.”

“I guess it'd be too much to ask for you to take your own advice,” he said, but he smiled as he did. “You be careful, too.”

“Is that an order, Your Majesty?”

“Yes. Yes it is.” She thought he was done and was turning to leave when he added, “Thanks for inviting me darkspawn hunting, Caitie. It's been… nice, feeling like a Grey Warden again.”

“You could be one, you know. You always have a place here if you want it.” He wouldn’t take it, she knew. She could feel the canyon between them where their friendship had once been, before she’d destroyed it with four little words: ‘I accept your surrender.’ Cait knew they’d never move past that moment, not really. It was enough to have this, delicate as it was.

The look Alistair wore told her that he was thinking the same thing. He nodded. “I know. That's not my life anymore.” He smiled wryly. “You know, except for the nightmares. And the whole dying young thing. What can you do.”

“What if you could do something?” Cait asked before she could stop herself. The question had been on her mind with increasing frequency lately. “If you could purge the taint and be truly free of the Grey Wardens, would you?”

“Maybe,” he said after a long moment of consideration. “If it were possible. You don't think if it was, someone would have figured it out by now?”

“You’re probably right,” she said. It wasn’t the right time to push the subject; it was enough just to plant the seed, for now. “I’ll let you rest. Good luck tomorrow, Alistair.”

\-------

Nathaniel's smile was warm and entirely too knowing when Cait finally returned to their bedroom. "Done avoiding me?"

“I'm not avoiding you, I'm avoiding _me_.” She sat down on the bed with a huff. “I figure if I walk fast enough and talk loud enough I can outrun my thoughts.”

"Did you?" he asked as he sat down next to her.

"Nope. Funny how they're always waiting whenever I get back.” She flopped back to lay on the bed and pulled him down with her. “I'm sorry we didn't get much of a honeymoon."

“We'll get a chance, once things settle down.”

“I hope so.” She was tired of feeling like this, hopeless and withdrawn. She wasn’t even worried about the coming battle, not really; she and her friends were ready, they were strong and so was their plan. Why couldn’t she shake this pall that had fallen over her? She said again, quietly, “I hope so. I could use a little peace and quiet.”

“We could see the world if you wanted,” Nate said softly. His hands found their way under her shirt. He trailed his fingers along her skin as if she were a map of the world, drifting to new locations as he spoke of them. “The Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux. Serault, the city of glass. Antiva City. I can show you the places I used to frequent up north, in Ostwick and Starkhaven and Kirkwall.” He smiled at her, indulgent and adoring. “Whatever my wife desires.”

Cait curled her fingers into his long, dark hair. "And what if all she desires is you, husband?"

“Then she'll have me. In whatever way she pleases,” he growled. He leaned over her, deliberate and unhurried. “Can I kiss you, wife?”

"Please."

For the rest of the night, Nathaniel made a very compelling argument for keeping her mind in the present. It was hard to feel disheartened or morose with his hands on her skin and the taste of him on her lips and their mingled breathing filling the space between them. For a while, she didn’t have to think at all.

Sometime in the pre-dawn hours of the morning, as Nate slept warm and sated with his face pressed to her throat and his hand low over her belly, Cait’s thoughts finally crystalized. She was _afraid_. Not of dying like she’d been assuming she was; she’d been staring death in the eye for nearly two years now and, so far, it had always blinked first. She was scared of the half-remembered moments in the Architect’s laboratory, of being helpless and trapped, of the darkspawn winning and choosing that instead of killing her, they would _use_ her.

Once the thought crossed her mind, it solidified into a more familiar, unyielding rage and settled in her chest like an old friend. The trauma and commotion of the last couple of weeks had made her take a little longer to get there, but she had now. The Architect and the Mother and whatever other blighted monsters waited for her didn’t know who they were messing with. She’d show them and leave their corpses on display as a warning for the next ones that tried. She was Warden-Commander Cathain Howe; it was time she started reminding the creatures of the dark about that. Starting with herself.

When she finally relented to sleep, Cait slept deep and dreamless. At dawn, Nate woke her with gentle kisses and loving words. They helped each other into their armor in silence, lingering while they could.

And then, together, they marched to war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: Cait and Nate should have a long, romantic courtship that ends in a big fancy wedding
> 
> Cait and Nate: we eloped just before the final battle. try and stop us

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna start posting this here now that I've finally given it a title! It'll follow Cait and Nate through Awakening and probably after. I know Cousland/Nathaniel is a super rare pair, but hopefully the 3 or 4 others that are as invested as I am will enjoy this :)


End file.
